Google Acquires JotSpot - Why Google Wants What JotSpot Has
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So why did Google spend an unknown amount of money and/or stock (terms of the deal have not been disclosed) to acquire JotSpot? Google has its own suite of web-based applications designed to boost office productivity: Google Spreadsheet, Google Calendar, Google Docs…the list goes on and on. Most of these have some means of allowing others to easily share and modify what one person has set up, something that has been missing (and keenly desired) for a long time with certain types of applications. For example, have you ever tried to share an Excel spreadsheet?
So at first glance, Google’s purchase of JotSpot seems a bit redundant. Oh sure, by purchasing JotSpot, Google is gaining JotSpot’s clientele (assuming they choose to stay – at least one JotSpot competitor is running a promotion that shows it’s hoping otherwise). And as small as JotSpot's clientele may be, relatively speaking, I’d be crazy to imply that this didn’t play some role in the negotiations, if only to show that a lot of apparently smart people like the way JotSpot is doing things.
Google is also gaining 27 very bright people. It’s hard to say how much of a role that played in the decision; Silicon Valley seems to attract smart, innovative people like sugar attracts ants. But again, that’s clearly not the biggest reason that Google made this purchase.
Google acquired JotSpot because its own office productivity tools need something more to join them all together into one integrated, easily functioning system. At least one commentator has observed that Google Docs, despite being a good browser-based collaborative word processor, is not quite up to being a platform for bringing together a whole suite of office-style applications. JotSpot, on the other hand, boasts a module-based design; you can use any of them together, mix and match, and even check out its Application Gallery of add-ons.
I want to emphasize here that I’m no expert on how programs work, and that I haven’t even had a chance to use JotSpot’s tools (though I’ve played around with a number of Google’s). But it seems to me Google might be able to use JotSpot as the “skeleton” upon which it can build…well, perhaps whatever it wants. Need an office productivity suite? Here’s JotSpot carrying our best office-style software! Need a website builder? Here’s JotSpot again, with website design modules…and you can choose to add these extra ones over here depending on the type of site you’re planning to build. And of course, all of it is free and ad-supported (though Google might charge a premium if you want the privacy of ad-free versions).
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