From left fieldGoogle Inc said it bought Germany-based Nik Software, which makes photo editing application Snapseed, a rival to Instagram, for an undisclosed amount.
“We want to help our users create photos they absolutely love, and in our experience Nik does this better than anyone,” said Vic Gundotra, senior vice president, engineering, on a Google+ post.
Source: [Reuters]
*EDIT: Reuters is a bit incorrect, Snapseed really isn’t a competitor to Instagram, perhaps they hope to push it that way. I guess it’s safe to say that Nik applications will probably find their way to Android.
cr
Snapseed is a rival to Instagram? Maybe in the way that Lightroom is a rival to Flickr. They do completely different things.
$50 Complete Nik Suite 2013 FTW !
Love Nik products, let's hope Google can sort out their update notification/activate process, which is, let's just say, sub-optimal. Certainly not as effective as OnOne's, or even Adobe's.
This does not excite me. The last time a juggernaut bought a small company (Microsoft & iView Media Pro), the software languished to the point that it wasn't worth using. (I'm thankful for Phase One stopping that descent).
Apparently Nik was in business for 17 years. Wow. One thing to consider is that Nik might not have been very profitable; and so this would be a well-deserved reward for the founders.I agree that this probably does not bode well for Nik's pro / client-based apps. It seems likely that Google will carry various Nik features into new Google products. But it does seem likely that Google will discontinue the Nik software line in its current form. This acquisition of Nik could also be an "acqui-hire" where they simply want to use the Nik team on totally new Google projects.R.I.P. Silver Efex???
these are by far my fav plugins.. colorFX and silverFX are phenominal.. Dfine and their new HDR 2.0 are VERY VERY good too.. i hope google takes them under their wing but doesnt ruin them. D