Google Buys an Enterprise Android Company, Divide (Formerly Known as Enterproid)
Google is buying a startup that focuses on Android in the enterprise and was backed by its Google Ventures investing group. — Needless to say, it's an alignment of interests. — The company is Divide, formerly known as Enterproid.
Context & Ripple Effects
Google is folding one of its own portfolio companies back into the parent: Divide, the enterprise Android startup formerly known as Enterproid, was previously backed by Google Ventures, so this is an acquisition of a company Google's investing arm already bet on — the deal coverage itself calls it an alignment of interests.
There is no disclosed price at announcement, yet the story traveled well beyond the usual startup-trade circuit — Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal both carried it alongside the tech outlets — which points at the real question underneath: what Google intends to do with an enterprise mobility toolset sitting inside the Android organization.
First-order effects
- Divide's technology for partitioning work data from personal data on Android phones moves in-house at Google, giving the Android team first-party enterprise mobility capability instead of relying on outside software layered onto the platform.
- Divide's existing business customers see their vendor change hands from a New York startup to the company that owns the operating system their deployment runs on.
Second-order effects
- With containerization moving under the OS maker's roof, independent mobile-device-management vendors lose the default position they held on Android work deployments and have to compete on features Google does not bundle.
- The exit rewards Google Ventures' model of backing startups adjacent to Google's own roadmap, where the corporate parent becomes the natural acquirer.
Third-order effects
- If Google keeps absorbing enterprise-mobility capability directly into Android rather than leaving that layer to partners, device management trends toward being a feature of the platform itself, controlled by whoever ships the OS.
The trend: Mobile platform owners are pulling enterprise device-management capability in-house through acquisitions instead of ceding that layer to third-party software vendors.