Francais | English | Espanõl

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a listing of corporate acquisitions made by Google.

Contents 1 Characteristics 2 2001 3 2002 4 2003 5 2004 6 2005 7 2006 8 Notes 9 External links

[edit] Characteristics

Most companies acquired by Google feature:

• A small but very talented development team
• Interesting and innovative products, technology, or intellectual property
• A private start-up with a relatively cheap price tag.

The biggest acquisition was online video sharing site YouTube in October 2006 for $1.65 billion in stock.<ref>La Monica, Paul R. "Google to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion." CNN. October 9, 2006. Retrieved on October 9, 2006.</ref>

Before the YouTube acquisition, the biggest one was Applied Semantics for $102 Million USD. The collective purchase price for Reqwireless, Akwan, and Android was $22.5 Million USD.

[edit] 2001

• Feb 2001: Deja's Usenet archive (not the company) was acquired, and was incorporated into Google Groups. <ref>"Google Acquires Usenet Discussion Service and Significant Assets from Deja.com", Google Press Center, February 12, 2001</ref>
• Sep 2001: Google acquired Outride Inc. Outride was a spin-off from Xerox (PARC).<ref>"Google Acquires Technology Assets of Outride Inc.", Google Press Center, September 20, 2001</ref>

[edit] 2002

(none)

[edit] 2003

• Feb 2003: Google acquires Pyra Labs, a weblogging provider and owner of Blogger. [1]
• Apr 2003: Neotonic Software is acquired as part of Google's plan to bring its CRM technology in-house. [2]
• Apr 2003: Applied Semantics is acquired for $102 million. Applied Semantics was a context-sensitive ad company whose acquisition by Google was integrated into Google's AdWords/AdSense programs. [3]
• Sep 2003: Kaltix, a small start-up, is acquired to develop and launch Personalized Search. [4]
• Oct 2003: Sprinks is acquired to enhance Google's Adwords and AdSense program. <ref>"Google Acquires Kaltix Corp.", Google Press Center, September 30, 2003</ref>

[edit] 2004

• Apr 2004: Ignite Logic is acquired. [5]
• Jun 2004: Google pays $5M for a 2.6% ownership of Baidu.[6]
• Jul 2004: Picasa is acquired. It helps to provide picture management tools to Blogger. <ref>"Google Acquires Picasa", Google Press Center, July 13, 2004</ref>
• Oct 2004: Keyhole Corp. is acquired. The next version of Keyhole's flagship product, previously called Keyhole, is released with the new name Google Earth. <ref>"Google Acquires Keyhole Corp", Google Press Center, October 27, 2004</ref>
• Sept-Dec 2004, Google reveals in its annual 10-K filing that it had acquired two Silicon Valley start-up companies: ZipDash and Australian firm Where2 LLC, founded by Lars Rasmussen. The technology provided by ZipDash was used to develop and launch Google Ride Finder. Where2 helped to provide the core mapping capabilities in Google Maps.

[edit] 2005

In 2005, Google submitted a 10-K filing with the SEC which revealed that it had acquired nine companies and substantially all of the assets of another six companies. The combined purchase price for these 15 companies was equal to $130.535 million USD.

One of the two acquisitions in which the exact acquisition date was not disclosed was Google's acquisition of 2Web Technologies. This startup company was a spinoff of ITK Software, and was headed up by CEO Jonathan Rochelle. The acquisition of 2Web reveals that Google already had plans for a spreadsheet product back in 2005. The acquisition of 2Web was a key part of the plan to develop and launch Google Spreadsheets, because after Google acquired 2Web, Rochelle was made the head product Manager of Google Spreadsheets. In addition to Rochelle, Fuzzy Khosrowshahi, Google Spreadsheet's tech lead, and Micah Lemonik, its main architect, were brought along as part of the acquisition. [7][8]

• Mar 2005: Web analytics tools provider Urchin Software Corporation is acquired. Urchin's technology was used to develop and launch Google Analytics. [9]
• May 2005: dodgeball, a social networking software provider for mobile devices, is acquired. [10]
• Jul 2005: Google, in combination with Goldman Sachs, and the Hearst Corporation, invests a total of $100 million into Current Communications Group. [11]
• Jul 2005: Google announces in its Q2 quarterly conference call that it had acquired Akwan Information Technologies as a part of its plan to open an R&D office and expand its presence into Latin and South America. [12]
• Jul 2005: Google acquires Canadian start-up firm Reqwireless, a Web browser and Mobile email software developer for wireless devices, as a part of its initiative to develop a version of GMail for the mobile device. [13][14]
• Aug 2005: Google acquires Android Inc., a software provider for mobile devices. [15]
• Dec 2005: Google pays $1 billion to acquire a 5% stake in Time Warner's AOL division. [16]

[edit] 2006

• January 2006: Google acquires dMarc Broadcasting, creator and operator of an automated platform that lets advertisers more easily schedule, deliver, and monitor their ads over radio, and radio broadcasters to automate schedules and advertising spots. The purchase price was $102 million, with an additional payout of up to $1.136 billion over three years if certain performance targets are met. [17]<ref>"Google to Acquire dMarc Broadcasting", Google Press Center, January 17, 2006</ref>
• February 2006: Google acquires Measure Map from Adaptive Path. Measure Map is a product to help with Blog analytics. Spearheaded by Jeffrey Veen.
• March 2006: Google acquires Upstartle, maker of an online word processing program Writely, which is now called Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
• March 2006: Google acquires @Last Software, makers of SketchUp. Using a plugin, SketchUp allows one to place 3D models into Google Earth.
• April 2006: Google acquires an advanced text search algorithm from the University of New South Wales in Australia. The algorithm was invented by Ori Allon, an Israeli student. Terms of the deal and purchase price were not disclosed. [18] [19]
• June 2006: Google sells all of the 749,625 shares of Beijing-based Baidu that it had owned. [20]
• August 2006: Google acquires Neven Vision, a company that specializes in biometric identification. This technology will make it easier for Picasa to organize and search for photos. [21]
• October 2006: Google acquires hosted wiki site JotSpot.
• November 2006: Google acquires online video sharing site YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock.<ref>La Monica, Paul R. "Google to buy YouTube for $1.65 billion." CNN. October 9, 2006. Retrieved on October 9, 2006.</ref> The company will retain its brand.

[edit] Notes

<references/>

[edit] External links

• A Timeline of Google's Acquisitions and Original Products
• Google's Southern California Acquisitions