It seems that Google has acquired Last Software, the company behind SketchUp, the amazingly cool 3d rendering program. What makes this purchase different from the rest of Google's acquisitions is that in the past they have been focused on acquiring web applications. While they did purchase Picasa, and then subsequently released the product for free, I don't think they'll be giving away a $500 product away for free anytime soon. This purchase is very clearly targeted to aiding their Google Earth application, but this purchase also gives them a revenue stream in the form of a boxed software package. I probably should have predicted this after seeing Google and SketchUp share a booth at MacWorld, but I didn't think anything of it -- at E3, Blizzard was always sharing booths with other vendors, but those vendors typically didn't have the bankroll of Google.
I'll be curious to see how this develops. Does this mean that Google may be headed into the realm of packaged software? Will Picasa 3.0 be something that competes with Photoshop Album in the near future?
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