Is this a first for google? I don't think I've ever heard of them selling a product/team to another company before. If not a first, certainly a rarity.
You're correct, it's rare but it happened before: Google sold its Radio Automation business to WideOrbit Inc. But usually, Google (as any other large tech company) is where acquired tech goes to die - never to be heard from again.
I have worked with a Trimble distributor for many years, and find this acquisition interesting. Over the last few years Trimble, traditionally a hardware company, has been acquiring various software companies. Internally, they are developing a virtual jobsite platform and I can see SketchUp fitting in with their other BIM technologies. Saying that though, I think the real motivation here is a talent acquisition.
Sketchup development has been neglible since Google acquired the company years ago. Aside from adding a kludged presentation capability to the "Pro" version there hasn't been a significant improvement to the core product in years (and I suspect that the presentation capabilities were in process at acquisition).
I wouldn't expect much in the way of improvements (read additional functionality) because of the acquisition. Google is a company for the masses, Trimble is sector and market specific. The only changes I would expect for a while are integrations with Trimble's current software and hardware.
Sketchup is a market specific product in the same way that Google App Engine is. I strongly suspect that Trimble's products already interface with Sketchup either directly or through standard ESRI or Autodesk file formats.
SketchUp is such a great tool. I use it for - furniture design! There's a healthy community of furniture design geeks out there.
Sadly, I can't see much synergy between GPS hardware and furniture design. I wish the acquirer was a CAD/design company. Hope we don't lose a great resource.
Any armchair CEOs have suggestions for other Google products that should be sold or spun out?
Wikipedia has an interesting list of discontinued Google products. There might be some interesting product ideas that didn't work at Google scale, but might still be worthwhile for a smaller company.
The problem is that most of the products on that list are probably tightly integrated with the Google infrastructure. The standalone product of SketchUp was sold off, but now the question is what will happen to the SketchUp 3D Warehouse.
I am really worried... getting people to trust the capabilities of Sketchup was really easy mainly to the Google brand. Now I really hope that Trimble can convince me. Long time Sketchup user here, since Sketchup 2, good @Last days.
Trimble is sponsoring development of several projects in different research areas involving 3D perception, as part of the second PCL code sprint.
PCL is the Point Cloud Library from Willowgarage that also created ROS, PR2 and Turtlebot. These guys are surely trying to do some good stuff for 3D. Hope the sketchup community benefits from this acquisition
This is an interesting development. I have a lot of colleagues in the architecture industry who are heavily dependant on SketchUp for early-stage conceptual work. I wonder if Trimble, a company with focus on hardware and BIM will push sketchup away from its easy to use, conceptual design origins.
I hear that some work on Apps/Docs and Chrome happens there. This morning's Google Drive SDK hangout featured at least one person in Boulder... he had a sweet view of the Flatirons behind him.
It appears that SketchUp was one of the thousand flowers that Google let bloom that isn't making it into Larry Page's bouquet. [1]
It's a good move for companies to shed products that aren't their core competency. Resources, and more importantly focus, are scarce and should only be used in activities which add the most value for the company.
Interesting. As a long time AutoCAD and SolidWorks user I have never thought of Trimble as a 3D CAD company. Not even a software company. One has to wonder if SketchUp could have found a better home than Trimble.
I can see an established 3D CAD company really enhancing it as a potential bridge onto their bigger tools and providing more interoperability with other platforms. I can't justify buying a license of SolidWorks for my kid's PC but if SketchUp were a SW product with a ramp up to SW I would definitely consider it and even pay for it.
GPS is commodity now, Trimble are looking to add value
It's hard to sell a $500 ruggadised GPS unit when it's built into someones iPhone, and people are beginning to wonder why they are paying quite so much even for RTK systems when the actual HW is so cheap.
But if even small scale housing construction started could be persuaded to use the same 3D mapping/GPS technology that big civil engineering projects do then you could tie up a nice market.
From the prospective concept design of the street of houses, the planning permission filings with 3D height modelling, sight lines, light rights, the cad drawings, then the automated layout of roads and foundations with GPS equipped machines - all with an integrated Trimble system.
Actually, Trimble's focus is not on consumer GPS, it is on machine control (heavy equipment GPS guidance), survey, and build construction. I'm familiar with the machine control hardware through my involvement with a Trimble distributor. The accuracy, especially vertical, achieved through Trimble's machine control is incredible. However, that accuracy is only achieved through the use of a static "base" and mobile (attached to machinery i.e. bulldozer) "rovers".
I do agree that the technology has become much cheaper over the last 10 years, while Trimble's pricing has not fallen at the same rate.
