Google Strengthens Imaging Offering With Nik Software Acquisition

Google has acquired Nik Software, the developer of popular image-editing application Snapseed.

No financial details of the takeover have been disclosed, but it could be interpreted as a reaction to Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram earlier this year. The two companies compete in the social networking space, although Google+ is a distant second to Facebook.

Nik Software

“We are pleased to announce that Google has acquired Nik Software. For nearly 17 years, we’ve been guided by our motto, ‘photography first’, as we worked to build world class digital image editing tools,” said a Nik Software statement. “We’ve always aspired to share our passion for photography with everyone, and with Google’s support we hope to be able to help many millions more people create awesome pictures.”

“Today I’m excited to welcome +Nik Software to the Google family!” wrote Vic Gundotra, senior vice president of engineering at Google. “We want to help our users create photos they absolutely love, and in our experience Nik does this better than anyone. Check out the examples from some of the world’s greatest photographers, and you’ll see what I mean.”

Facebook’s takeover of Instagram was approved by the US Federal Trade Commission in August following an antitrust investigation. The initial price was believed to be around $1 billion, but this dropped to $750 million due to Facebook’s falling share price.

Google will hope that the acquisition of Nik will attract photographers to its Google+ social network, which launched last year. Google claimed to have reached the 90 million member milestone in January, but many observers were left confused about how the search giant presented the information. However it now claims to have recruited its 100 millionth active member.

“I’m happy to report that we have just crossed 100,000,000 monthly active users on Google+,” wrote Gundotra.

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