Google sells off Terra Bella satellite unit to Planet Labs
Alphabet's Google on Friday confirmed a deal to sell off its satellite mapping business, Terra Bella, to Planet Labs -- which despite earlier speculation is unlikely to affect Google Maps or by extension its main competition, Apple Maps.
Google will continue to license imaging data from Planet in a multi-year contract, the latter company said. It will, however, be turning over control of its seven SkySat satellites, which have submeter resolution enabling extremely high detail.
Planet was already operating a much larger fleet of its own satellites, but with a lower resolution between 3 and 5 meters (about 9.8 to 16.4 feet).
When the deal was still in talks reports suggested that Alphabet and Google were trying to cut costs, given the expense of launching and operating satellites. Planet, meanwhile, was allegedly struggling to find customers.
As a part of the acquisition, "a number" of Terra Bella workers will make the jump to Planet. How many people might remain at Google or get laid off was unmentioned, as were any other terms of the deal.
Past rumors hinted that Planet might be offering a combination of cash and equity, and as a startup, even tapping into venture funding to help pay.
If nothing else the sale may put Google and Apple on a more level playing field. Apple is heavily reliant on third-party mapping data, even if the company has been driving vehicles around cities to collect its own.
Google will continue to license imaging data from Planet in a multi-year contract, the latter company said. It will, however, be turning over control of its seven SkySat satellites, which have submeter resolution enabling extremely high detail.
Planet was already operating a much larger fleet of its own satellites, but with a lower resolution between 3 and 5 meters (about 9.8 to 16.4 feet).
When the deal was still in talks reports suggested that Alphabet and Google were trying to cut costs, given the expense of launching and operating satellites. Planet, meanwhile, was allegedly struggling to find customers.
As a part of the acquisition, "a number" of Terra Bella workers will make the jump to Planet. How many people might remain at Google or get laid off was unmentioned, as were any other terms of the deal.
Past rumors hinted that Planet might be offering a combination of cash and equity, and as a startup, even tapping into venture funding to help pay.
If nothing else the sale may put Google and Apple on a more level playing field. Apple is heavily reliant on third-party mapping data, even if the company has been driving vehicles around cities to collect its own.
Comments
Goog is always selling off companies/tech it acquired while I can't remember the last time Apple sold any part of its business. Can you?
tells me Apple actually buys things it can utilize and....utilizes them bringing in profit.
Mmm...
I've been playing around with Sketchup a 3D Modeling program. It was initially developed by 2 independent developers in 2000, then sold to Google in 2006. Google sold Sketchup to Trimble Navigation in 2012.
This is different from a CAD App which normally starts with 2D drawings. With Sketchup, you jump right in and start modeling in 3D and later export to 2D CAD apps as necessary.
Sketchup is written in C and is available for macOS and Windows. You can write program extensions in Ruby -- available as a collection from SMustard (think about it). In addition, there is an online warehouse of thousands of Sketchup models, e.g. cars, buildings, furniture, landscapes, etc.
https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com
What is of most interest to me is having Sketchup run on an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, with program extensions written in Swift.
If you don't want to know anything about Google then why are you bothering to read an article about them? Just skip past it. It's silly to object to a post that adds background to the story.