This is Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol, and Ludvig (Ludde) Strigeus, the writer of µTorrent.
Together, we are pleased to announce that BitTorrent, Inc. and µTorrent AB have decided to join forces. BitTorrent has acquired µTorrent as it recognized the merits of µTorrent’s exceptionally well-written codebase and robust user community. Bringing together µTorrent’s efficient implementation and compelling UI with BitTorrent’s expertise in networking protocols will significantly benefit the community with what we envision will be the best BitTorrent client.
What does this mean for the µTorrent community? Not much, at least not at first. The intention is to maintain the website as it is, and keep the forums and community active. Moving forward behind the scenes, we will continue to develop µTorrent and will be using the codebase in other applications, especially ones where a fast, lightweight implementation is more suitable, such as embedded systems on TVs, cell phones, and other non-PC platforms.
The existent µTorrent and BitTorrent communities are immensely valuable to us, which is why we are announcing this here first to make sure you’re all the first to know about the news. The plan is to continue to foster the health and growth of the community that has been critical to the success of µTorrent. Thank you in advance for your support.
Bram and Ludde
forum.utorrent.com / µTorrent and BitTorrent Join Forces
It looks as though BitTorrent is looking to further spread its wings now that it has received an infusion of cash from investors. In May of this year, BitTorrent first went legitimate by scoring a movie distribution deal with Warner Brothers. Later in July, the company landed another distribution deal with independent movie distributor Image Entertainment.
BitTorrent is now using part of its $20 million USD in financing to purchase the popular uTorrent BitTorrent application. uTorrent has been praised for its lightweight profile (170 kB application) and memory footprint (around 4 MB during typical usage). Bram Cohen and Ludvig Strigeus, the writers of the uTorrent application, had this to say about the acquisition:
What does this mean for the µTorrent community? Not much, at least not at first. The intention is to maintain the website as it is, and keep the forums and community active. Moving forward behind the scenes, we will continue to develop µTorrent and will be using the codebase in other applications, especially ones where a fast, lightweight implementation is more suitable, such as embedded systems on TVs, cell phones, and other non-PC platforms.
There was mixed reaction on the uTorrent forums with regards to the uTorrent-BitTorrent deal. “Absolute disgrace…Bit Torrent are now affiliated with the big players Warner Brothers for example, and they have signed an agreement to distribute digital content through the Bit Torrent client, what does this mean? basically that uTorrent will be that distribution client at some point in the future, and how long before we see adverts for movies within uTorrent,” said antk1 on the uTorrent forums. Another user, doink-chan, was more gracious with regards to the announcement “As long as µTorrent keeps being a good program and doesn’t become doinky, I have no problem with it.”
DailyTech - BitTorrent Buys uTorrent
This is one killer deal .. who dies ? us …thats who… utorrent kicked ass until bram cohen came along . we all know Cohen shaked hands with MPAA and RIAA to enable legalised file sharing and now the utorrent with them this is one client you want to avoid . do not upgrade . just switch ..that is if you dont mind the MPAA to know what you are listening to .
WTH…It wont be long…until utorrent carries ad’s in it and other features like…
BIG COMPANIES SPYING ON OUR EVERY DOWNLOAD ;)…
i m so depressed…hell… i should have donated some money to the makers of utorrent in the first place for making such a gr8 torrent client…instead of crying now 
I think this is somewhere a response to the Zudeo release from Azureus… I think BT is getting so much attention that ledde (utorrent dev) couldnt keep his hands empty anymore…
I dont think its wrong that the big companies start using BT protocol… I just hope they dont kill it!! And like Bram thinks, we’ll surely love to have BT in embedded devices!!
The listening of the RIAA or any other organisation does not really matter for us … 
EDIT:I never actually liked the Utorrent … sure it was very light & portable independent app…but it always used to mess up the UPNP of my sys & lead my modem to get fussy…many 220bx users have reported this..