The maker of 3D creation package SketchUp, @Last Software of Boulder, CO, have been acquired for an undisclosed sum by Google.
SketchUp founder Brad Schell has been fending off Google acquisition rumors since October 2005. Those rumors finally received confirmation, as the company’s product marketing manager, Jeff Martin, announced on Google’s official blog that @Last Software had become part of Google.
When I went to sleep last night, I was employed by a small start-up called @Last Software. This morning, although I’m going to the same office, sitting at the same desk, and seeing the same people, I’m going to work as a Google employee.
Schell dismissed any possibility of the team picking up stakes and transferring to cubicles at the Mountain View home of the Googleplex:
Once they saw Tom W and me descend on the free food at the Googleplex cafeteria (picture locusts on a Kansas wheat field) they knew they had to keep us in Boulder. We aren’t going anywhere.
A free plug-in lets users of Google Earth view SketchUp 3D content created and placed in that application. Martin noted they have had hundreds of users place 3D models in Google Earth already, and expects that number to climb.
Currently the SketchUp software costs $495, but the company has made an 8-hour trial available for users to test themselves. There are no plans at the present time to make the product available for free or change its pricing model. That will disappoint Inside Google blogger Nathan Weinberg, who had hoped for a free version of the product.
This purchase marks Google’s second buy in a week. Last week they bought Upstartle, the firm behind the Writely online collaborative word processor. Unlike the Writely purchase, the SketchUp buy has not generated frantic “here comes Google Office” talk in the blogosphere. Yet.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
