Google to acquire Xively IoT platform from LogMeIn

Google announced today that it intends to buy Xively from LogMeIn, giving Google Cloud an established IoT platform to add to their product portfolio. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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.

As for LogMeIn, which acquired Xively in 2014 for $12 million, they acknowledged in their company blog post announcing the deal that they intend to exit the IoT space. “So the obvious question is, does this mean LogMeIn is exiting the IoT? Well, if you mean the IoT connectivity platform space, yes, we’re leaving it. 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.

The company purchased Jive Communications just last week in a signal that they were going to concentrate on unified communications. “Last week, we announced a deal to acquire Jive Communications – a deal that will bring together LogMeIn’s renowned portfolio of collaboration apps like GoToMeeting and join.me with one of the best cloud telephony services on the market,” they wrote in the blog post.

As for Google, it gives the cloud business a stronger foothold in IoT with an established platform, and engineering talent, which over time could help build their cloud business further. Earlier this month, Google announced that its combined cloud business was generating $1 billion per quarter. They need to find ways to expand that business to compete with the likes of AWS, Microsoft and other cloud market leaders. This purchase could be a step in helping them to do that. Internet of Things devices require many different types of cloud resources to build, run and manage the devices and all of the data they are generating.

They believe that by combining Xively’s platform with Google’s security, analytics, machine learning and ability to scale, they can give customers the tools to build IoT applications on their cloud platform.

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