Google announced plans to buy enterprise software firm CloudSimple, another sign the search giant isn’t letting a flurry of antitrust investigations interrupt its expansion strategy.
CloudSimple will join Google Cloud, a priority business for the Alphabet unit. The companies didn’t disclose financial terms.
The acquisition could help Google get a foothold in a corner of the cloud computing market where larger rivals, Microsoft and Amazon.com, have run ahead. CloudSimple builds tools that help companies move information, applications, databases and other systems from in-house data centres to the public cloud.
The Santa Clara, California-based start-up specialises in VMware virtualisation software, which helps businesses run corporate networks and business software more efficiently. VMWare’s large enterprise customer base has made it an attractive partner for the leading public cloud providers, including Google.
In a Google blog post announcing the deal, Ajay Patel, a VMware senior vice president, said his company will continue to work with CloudSimple.
In recent months, US regulators and congress have opened multiple inquiries into Google over competition concerns, including the company’s history of acquisitions. Since those probes began, Google has announced multibillion-dollar takeovers of Looker Data Sciences, a cloud company, and Fitbit, a device maker.
Google has argued that it has a small market share in cloud computing, enterprise software and consumer devices. Antitrust officials cleared Google’s US$2.6-billion bid for Looker in early November. — Reported by Mark Bergen and Nico Grant, (c) 2019 Bloomberg LP
