Trade Resources Industry Views Google Confirmed Purchase of Productivity Firm QuickOffice and Meebo

Google Confirmed Purchase of Productivity Firm QuickOffice and Meebo

Google has confirmed the purchase of productivity firm QuickOffice and instant messaging business Meebo.

QuickOffice has become a well-known name in the mobile space, offering a word processor, spreadsheet and other productivity tools for Android mobiles and tablets.

Google Buys QuickOffice and Meebo

QuickOffice will now become part of the company it has been providing tools for, although neither has revealed how much the acquisition is worth.

"When we embarked on our mission to become the world leader in office productivity, we knew we were taking on a huge challenge," said Alan Masarek, co-founder and CEO of QuickOffice.

"Now, we are ushering in a new chapter with Google. By combining the magic of Google's intuitive solutions with Quickoffice's powerful products, our shared vision for anytime, anywhere productivity can only grow."

Google has also bought social messaging specialists, Meebo.

Meebo was formed in 2005 as a cloud-based messaging service. It has since become an add-on for websites to allow visits to interact with one another over the page, attempting to encourage more content sharing.

Now it will be integrated into the same team that develops the Google+ social network to add more expertise in social interactions.

"For more than seven years we've been helping publishers find deeper relationships with their users and to make their sites more social and engaging," read a blog post from the Meebo team.

"Together with Google we're super jazzed to roll up our sleeves and get cracking on even bigger and better ways to help users and website owners alike."

Again, neither party would confirm the price of the deal, but rumours emerged in May that Google was putting $100m on the table to acquire Meebo.

The latest results from Google – released in April – showed it had the money to spend on acquisitions, making $1.15bn on sales in the UK alone.

In the first quarter of 2012, Google reported global revenues of $10.65bn – with the UK accounting for 11% of that – representing a 24% rise compared to the same quarter last year.

Larry Page, CEO of Google, said:  "We saw tremendous momentum from the big bets we've made in products like Android, Chrome and YouTube."

"We are still at the very early stages of what technology can do to improve peoples' lives and we have enormous opportunities ahead.  It is a very exciting time to be at Google."

 

Source: http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240151251/Google-buys-Meebo
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Google Buys QuickOffice and Meebo