Motorola's got its credit card out and it is not afraid to use it!

Back in January, Motorola bought Kreatel Communications, an IP set-top box and middleware vendor. Last month Motorola bought Netopia, a maker of DSL equipment. Now Motorola acquired Tut Systems in a deal worth $39 million.

Tut, founded in 1989, is in the IPTV market, and it now counts more than 160 IPTV-service providers worldwide as customers. Tut's encoding equipment supports MPEG-2 and MPEG- 4 AVC video compression, as well as other features such as ad insertion and conditioning of video and audio.

Motorola's offer for Tut of $1.15 per share is almost a 20% premium. The companies expect the acquisition to close in the first quarter of 2007. Motorola will maintain Tut's operations in Lake Oswego, oregon; and San Diego and Pleasanton, California.