Every now and again within the world of technology, we wake up in the morning to a complete up-ending of the market and a new approach to how a problem can be solved. Such is the case with Google Cloud as the company has announced that it will acquire data analytics startup, Looker, for $2.6 billion. The new acquisition is expected to be completed later this year and is subject to regulatory conditions and approvals.
The acquirement will see Google boost its cloud-computing capabilities in a majorly progressive industry in which the company has fallen behind some of its rivals, particularly industry leader, Amazon Web Services. At the end of last year, a Canalys report noted that Google runs steady in third place with 7.6% of the cloud market share, behind Amazon’s 32% share and Microsoft ’s 13.7% share.
Both Looker and Google are well acquainted with each other as the Alphabet’s venture capital company, CapitalG, invested in Looker when it was coming of age.
Thomas Kurian, the man who took over the direction of Google Cloud in November 2018 believes that the acquirement of Looker will help both companies complete a full solution of data analytics services for customers. Kurian shared his thoughts on the Google Cloud blog, “The addition of Looker to Google Cloud will help us offer customers a more complete analytics solution from ingesting data to visualizing results and integrating data and insights into their daily workflows. It will also help us deliver industry-specific analytics solutions in our key verticals, whether that’s supply chain analytics in retailing; media analytics in entertainment; or healthcare analytics at a global scale.”
Frank Bien, the CEO of Looker, said also in a post on the Looker blog about being acquired by Google, “Joining Google Cloud means our ability to affect this mega change is greatly accelerated. The combination of Google Cloud’s BigQuery and associated data infrastructure and Looker’s platform for innovative data solutions will reinvent what it means to solve business problems with data at an entirely different scale and value point. Together, we’ll have better reach, more resources, and the brightest minds in both Analytics and Cloud Infrastructure working together to build an exciting path forward for our customers and partners. The mission that we undertook as Looker is a giant one — and with Google Cloud, our ability to complete that mission is significantly enhanced.”
As the data infrastructure revolution continues to transform the cloud and data deployment solutions, the emergence of big data as both fast and scalable makes the synergy between Google Cloud and Looker that more appealing. In the press document, Google intends to fully support a multitude of databases and strategies for deployment including across on-premises and multi-cloud.
Both companies have a solid existing partnership and with 350 customers in common, it is no surprise that the acquisition came quickly. The Looker acquisition is the first major one under former Oracle executive, Thomas Kurian’s leadership and easily tops the $625 million is paid for Apigee in 2016.
