Search engine giant Google on Wednesday announced that it had acquired social media company Twitter’s app-development platform, Fabric. While neither side made public any of the final terms of the deal, Google said Fabric will join its Developer Product Group and that the platform would be integrated with its Firebase team.
“Our missions align closely – help developers build better apps and grow their business,” Google said in a blog post. “We’ll share further details in the coming weeks...as we work closely together with the Fabric team to determine the most efficient ways to further combine our strengths.” The tech major said the acquisition was part of its long-term effort to deliver a “comprehensive suite of features for iOS, Android and mobile Web app development”.
Twitter, on the other hand, said Google’s “commitment to building mobile developer tools” was a “strong match” for Fabric. The social media company said it will continue to develop its public programming interfaces as well as its “Publisher Platform products, including Twitter Kit and TweetDeck”. “We are focussing on our core products and business to best-position Twitter for long-term growth,” the company said.
The sale comes after Twitter announced in October 2016 that it was shutting down its video app for mobiles, Vine. It was bought by Twitter for $30 million (approximately Rs 200 crore) in October 2012. The shutdown came even as the company was looking to sell out to a bigger firm such as Google. However, Google, Apple and Disney had all reportedly declined to buy Twitter, with some suggesting that its asking rate was too high.
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