It might not come as a surprise that Google has taken over a large number of firms since 2001, but it still makes fascinating reading.
The company made just 2 acquisitions in 2001, and interestingly made no purchases in 2002. But the next year they really seemed to get their wallet out; over this twelve month period they grabbed a grand total of 6 companies. These firms included sectors as diverse as weblog software, blogging services and the web search engine Kaltix. Two of the firms were online advertising specialists.
In 2004 they also made 6 acquisitions, beginning with the Ignite Logic – a HTML editor, and finishing the year up with buying out Keyhole Inc – a map analysis firm. During this year Google also bought Picasa. Picasa is certainly famous now, but it has really taken 5 years to become the huge picture hosting brand that we know today.
Next year Google really went crazy with the old spending sprees. They bought 11 companies: 2 German, one Canadian and one Brazilian – the rest were American. The biggest purchase was of AOL’s broadband service for 1 Billion dollars. If it wasn’t obvious Google were one of the big boys before, it was by now.
In 2006 Google toned it down a bit with a paltry 10 acquisitions. The biggest by far of these was the video sharing website YouTube. By this stage Google had acquired technology and firms in areas as diverse as online advertising, map analysis, 3D modelling software, search engines, web analytics, file sharing, spreadsheets, image organisers, traffic analysis – and much more.
Since 2006 Google took over a further 18 companies, bringing the current running total to 56 firms of the finest techie talent in the world.
It’s little wonder then, that Google literally owns the internet.
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