Last week, Google acquired Appjet, the makers of the online collaborative editing tool, Etherpad, for an undisclosed sum. Launched in November 2008, Etherpad targets the same market as Google Docs, although Etherpad supports realtime updates to content, whereas users of Google Docs experience a several-second delay between their making edits to a document and those edits being visible to other collaborators. The Etherpad service will remain online until the end of March 2010, but beyond this all documents or “pads” will be deleted.
From Google’s standpoint, the acquisition is a no-brainer for the company – it is acquiring a handful of very bright people (several of whom are ex-Google anyway) who can provide expertise that will benefit two product areas: Google Docs (for the reasons already mentioned) and Google Wave (which is where the Appjet team will now sit within Google). Similarly, it is easy to see why the Appjet team would jump at this opportunity – indeed their investors have already been quoted as saying the team didn’t want to try to compete with Google Wave, much better to be part of it.
However, there has been outcry from the Etherpad user community, so much so that Google and the Appjet team have agreed to allow users to continue creating new pads until the service is closed (the initial blog post announcing the acquisition stated that this would not be the case), plus they are intending to open source the Etherpad code to placate its furious users. Google also plans to send all Etherpad users an invitation to Google Wave – understandable from Google’s perspective, but not something that Etherpad users are likely to to consider as a welcome consolation prize.
While it is always a shame when an innovative competitor is taken out of the market, I can’t help thinking that if it wasn’t Google who acquired Appjet, then one of its competitors would, and given their background, this is the best move for the Appjet team. Hopefully this will also help Google to bridge the awkward gap that exists currently between Google Docs (which, as part of Google Apps, sits comfortably as an enterprise tool) and Google Wave (which, despite interest from the enterprise market and media, remains targeted at the consumer market).
Stay tuned for a new premium report on this area of the market, Is Microsoft’s reign coming to an end in the productivity suite market?, to be published later this month.
You can read our On The Radar report on Google Enterprise here.
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Tags: Industry news
