Back in February I said that if you miss Siri you will miss the future of the Web.

Well, Apple did not miss the future of the Web.

According to FTC Apple just purchased Siri.

If previous acquisitions by Apple are an indicator this would have gone for 8x to 10x investments, which would have put the price at about $200 million. Since this company/product just came out this year (I named it one of the startups to watch in 2010) it would have had to go for that amount or more to get the investors interested in selling so soon.

I remember when I first saw Siri I told the CEO that they would get into a bidding war with someone bidding vs. Google. I would not be shocked to hear that happened.

Great to see one of my favorite startups of the year going so quickly. Wow.

Why is this strategic for Apple?

Because Siri hooked up APIs from around the world in a very cool personal assistant. It was one of the first apps I loaded on my iPad. Why? Because you could talk to it with your voice and have it do things from getting you a taxi to having it buy movie tickets for you.

The value in unlocked is huge. This shows Apple is very willing to buy its way into the new mobile web and the new API-driven web. This also could be a major cornerstone in how it competes with Google.