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Chronicles

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Google's Skybox acquisition helps extend global internet access, enables cloud service for data about Earth

Google Owns a Satellite Now  —  To understand the behemoth's $500 million purchase of Skybox Imaging, don't look to the sky.  The clouds will do just fine.

The Atlantic Online Robinson Meyer

Context & Ripple Effects

Skybox had already tied satellite imagery to Hadoop in 2012, positioning its data as a cloud-computing workload rather than only a source of pictures. Google’s purchase turns that imagery-and-Hadoop proposition into an in-house capability after reports in May that it was pursuing the company.

The $500 million deal combines control of Skybox’s satellites and imagery with Google’s planned Earth-data cloud services, while Google also identifies satellite-based internet access as a future use. The same acquisition was widely covered across technology and general-interest outlets, underscoring its significance beyond a conventional imaging-company purchase.

First-order effects

  • Google gains Skybox Imaging’s satellite-imagery capability for its Earth-data cloud services, bringing the data source inside Google rather than leaving it as an external supplier.
  • Skybox’s technology is directed toward two Google priorities: high-resolution Earth imagery and an eventual satellite-based internet-access effort.

Second-order effects

  • Organizations seeking Earth data can face a more vertically integrated Google offering, in which imagery and cloud processing are controlled by the same provider.
  • Satellite-imagery providers and cloud rivals must contend with Google combining infrastructure ownership with data storage and analysis, rather than competing on only one layer.

Third-order effects

  • If large cloud companies continue acquiring physical data-collection assets, competition shifts from cloud capacity alone toward control of the infrastructure that produces valuable datasets.
  • Satellite networks increasingly become part of the internet-and-cloud stack, with imagery, connectivity and computing services reinforcing one another under a single operator.

The trend: Google’s Skybox purchase is part of a shift toward cloud platforms owning the physical infrastructure that generates both data and connectivity.

Related: Constellation-stack control · Cloud-to-Infrastructure Reversal · Capability Acquisition · Google · Skybox Imaging · Satellite imagery and Hadoop mean $70M for Skybox

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