Google acquires mobile app performance startup Pulse.io
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat :
Context & Ripple Effects
The Pulse.io deal lands one day after Google handed app developers new AdWords, Analytics, and AdMob monetization tools, so the company is pairing money-making plumbing with performance monitoring in the same week. It is also an early entry in what becomes a sustained 2015-2016 shopping spree for developer-facing tools, from the prototyping tool Pixate to training software Synergyse.
First-order effects
- Pulse.io's monitoring technology moves under Google's roof, giving Android developers a native option for tracking app performance alongside the Analytics and AdMob stack they were just handed.
Second-order effects
- Standalone mobile APM vendors now compete against a free-to-bundle incumbent that controls both the operating system and the ad pipeline, pressuring them toward deeper specialization or acquisition themselves.
Third-order effects
- The later decision to shut Pixate down within a year of buying it shows the pattern this deal fits: Google absorbs developer tools into its platform rather than running them as products, a lifecycle risk for any team building on an acquired startup.
The trend: Google is assembling a full-stack mobile developer platform through serial acquisitions, with bought tools folded into Android's analytics-and-ads core rather than kept standalone.