Google to Acquire Data-Analytics Firm Looker--Update
June 06 2019 - 12:20PM
Dow Jones News
By Aisha Al-Muslim
Google has made a long-awaited acquisition to bolster its
cloud-computing business, a booming industry where it has lagged
behind rivals.
The Alphabet Inc. unit unveiled a deal on Thursday to acquire
Looker, a business-intelligence software and big data analytics
platform, for $2.6 billion in cash. The two companies were well
acquainted; Alphabet earlier invested in Looker through its
venture-capital arm CapitalG.
The move indicates Google will continue to pour resources into
its Google Cloud division as it remains far behind rivals
Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp in cloud computing. The area is
a priority of Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai, who replaced
the unit's head, Diane Greene, with ex- Oracle executive Thomas
Kurian earlier this year. Analysts have long speculated an
acquisition as likely.
Yet Google Cloud remains a problematic. Just this weekend,
Google reported widespread rolling outages in the U.S. that
dramatically slowed crucial Google services like Gmail, YouTube and
Google Cloud Storage for much of Sunday. The disruption, which
reduced regional network capacity, was caused by an incorrectly
applied configuration change, Google said.
The acquisition builds on an existing partnership between Google
and Looker, which share more than 350 joint customers, such as
BuzzFeed Inc., SunRrun Inc. and Yahoo, a unit of Verizon
Communications Inc., the companies said. The deal is expected to be
completed later this year, pending regulatory approval.
The addition of Looker to Google's cloud-computing business will
give customers more capability to analyze data and create
visualizations from the information, Google said.
Looker, whose software is used to connect to databases like
Amazon's Redshift and Microsoft's SQL Server, will continue to
support cloud databases from vendors other than Google, said Looker
CEO Frank Bien.
"We remain committed to our multi-cloud strategy and will retain
and expand Looker's capabilities to analyze data across Clouds,"
Mr. Kurian said in prepared remarks.
Google's latest deal to bolster its cloud offerings comes as
federal regulators ramp up scrutiny of large technology companies
and the influence they wield.
The Wall Street Journal has reported the Justice Department is
gearing up for an antitrust probe of Google, whose reach extends
from online search and advertising to smartphone technology and its
YouTube video platform.
Write to Aisha Al-Muslim at aisha.al-muslim@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
June 06, 2019 12:05 ET (16:05 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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