Google announced today that it intends to buy Xively from LogMeIn for $50 million, giving Google Cloud an established IoT platform to add to their product portfolio.
In a blog post announcing the acquisition, Google indicated it wants to use this purchase as a springboard into the growing IoT market, which it believes will reach 20 billion connected things by 2020. With Xively they are getting a tool that enables device designers to build connectivity directly into the design process while providing a cloud-mobile connection between the end user app and the connected thing, whatever that happens to be.
“This acquisition, subject to closing conditions, will complement Google Cloud’s effort to provide a fully managed IoT service that easily and securely connects, manages and ingests data from globally dispersed devices,” Antony Passemard from Google wrote in the blog post.
LogMeIn stated in a company blog post announcing the deal that they believed Google is a better fit for Xively. “We believe that Google Cloud, now armed with Xively’s team and great technology – and backed by their platform and developer heritage and reach – are a far better fit for the future of platform leadership,” they wrote. They are probably right about that.