Internet giant Google has continued its tradition of acquiring young start ups for their talent, by purchasing start up development studio AppJet for an undisclosed amount.
The small company announced on its website its team will now join the engineering crew in Sydney responsible for building the Google Wave project.
The company was founded in 2007 by a number of former MIT students, and was set up by the Y Combinator venture capital program, which assists early-stage start ups.
But the move won’t be a change of pace for its executives, including chief executive Aaron Iba, chief technology officer J.D. Zamfirescu and chief operating officer Daniel Clemens, who have previously worked at Google.
The company has reportedly raised about $US700,000 in seed funding, but reports from industry blog TechCrunch suggest Google has paid an amount in the low eight-figures.
“Appjet, the company behind EtherPad, is a team of highly-talented entrepreneurs with deep expertise in real-time Web collaboration,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement.
“Google and AppJet have a shared vision of how web collaboration can benefit users, and we’re excited to have the AppJet team contribute to the success of Google Wave.”
AppJet’s flagship product is the EtherPad, a real-time collaboration tool that allows users to write and edit text over an internet connection without delay.
This is similar to what is being developed as part of the Google Wave project, which will allow users to write and edit text in real time, along with a number of other features seen in social networking sites such as invitations and file sharing.
It has been suggested Google’s interest in EtherPad lies in its design for private use. AppJet originally created the program to be used for internal purposes, which could be useful for Google if it ever decides to tailor Google Wave for businesses.
“We are happy to announce that AppJet Inc. has been acquired by Google. The EtherPad team will continue its work on real-time collaboration by joining the Google Wave team,” AppJet said on its blog.
But some EtherPad customers and fans have been left disappointed, with the company announcing no new members will now be accepted and no refunds offered. Instead, all EtherPad registered customers who send in their email addresses will receive an invitation to use the Google Wave beta.
“We do realise (as does the Google Wave team) that Wave doesn’t yet have all the functionality you rely on, and isn’t yet as mature as EtherPad. We are confident that in the long-term you will be really happy with Google Wave,” the blog post stated.
Patrick Stafford is a freelance journalist and a former deputy editor of SmartCompany.
