Google's parent company Alphabet has agreed to acquire Fabric, a Twitter-owned software toolkit for mobile apps. To be clear, Alphabet isn't purchasing Google. That's another conversation altogether, as whoever buys Twitter wholesale remains to be seen, but Google is, in fact, buying one of Twitter's remaining parts.
Both companies, however, are playing the laconic card, opting not to disclose financial details of the purchase.
Google Buys Fabric
Google will absorb Twitter employees tied to Fabric. It's a move that'll help the Mountain View, California company to trawl mobile developers to its shore — key individuals who'll eventually work on the company's cloud computing service.
"[W]e see [Fabric] as a great opportunity to bring together two amazing developer platforms, to really have the best of breeds," said Jason Titus, Google's Developer Product Group VP.
Google will also be privy to Crashlytics as part of the Fabric deal. Crashlytics is Twitter's software failure tracking tool. Titus also seems to be playing the laconic card when pressed about the number of Twitter employees moving over to Google as part of the service.
Firebase
Google said in May that it was to extend its Firebase platform that'll make it a worthy competition to Facebook and Twitter's Fabric. Firebase is a cloud-based mobile and web application platform Google purchased in 2014. It's made up of complimentary features developers can mix and match as they see fit.
The acquisition of Firebase is a crucial headway for Google, doubling as a tactic to accrue developers away from Apple and toward its own turf, encouraging them to cobble up software for the mobile web, a space Google is all too familiar with, given that it's the same one providing a sizable chunk of advertising revenue for the company.
Google's developer services are — mostly — free, but they do implement a paid tier.
Now that Fabric has been dislodged from Twitter, the microblogging service is yet again showing signs of attenuation, which is even more significant now as it faces pressure to do well. The company's executives have been trying to come up with methods to enliven the service as a way of course-reversing its revenue slowdown. Last year, Twitter failed to shop itself to potential buyers, pushing the management to talk about whether the company should instead offload its disparate "non-core" parts, Bloomberg reports. That's what's happening now, apparently, with Fabric being sent off to Google's HQ.
Twitter introduced Fabric in 2014, its revere for it owing much to the belief that it'll have potential in China. Titus says that Google successfully signed Alibaba, a Chinese e-commerce company as a customer. Alibaba uses Firebase for developing apps meant to be released outside mainland China, since Firebase isn't available in there, like many, if not all, Google services. Google might expand developer tools in that country, although it has no plans to launch Fabric there yet.
"Fabric and Firebase operate mobile platforms with unique strengths in the market today. We're excited to combine these platforms together to make the best mobile developer platform in the world for app teams," said Rich Paret, Fabric's GM and Engineering VP.
When the purchase closes, Google will commence providing the services tied to Fabric, alongside other beta products under terms Fabric published. Fabric says that existing users should still be able to keep using its products during the transition period.
