The Drum Awards for Marketing - Extended Deadline

-d -h -min -sec

Microsoft Alphabet Google

Googles purchase of software developer Apigee a boom for B2B marketers

Author

By Laurie Fullerton, Freelance Writer

September 13, 2016 | 3 min read

Alphabet Inc.'s Google is forging ahead in offering technology that helps companies build digital connections for customers and sales reps, which is a boon for marketers as well.

photo
photo of company

The search engine giant has agreed to pay $625m for Apigee Corp., a provider of cloud-based software tools that companies use to develop and manage application programming interfaces, or APIs, to transfer data between applications like e-commerce sites and customer databases.

This bodes well for B2B brands hoping to build and manage APIs that sales reps use to access online database information in sales records and customer activity, according to a Bloomberg report.

Apigee sells a platform that aids companies in managing their APIs, programming tools that help developers build software that talks to each other and shares information without revealing the underlying code. APIs have become an integral part of cloud software development, allowing one application to pull data and use services from multiple other programs.

“The addition of Apigee’s API solutions to Google cloud will accelerate our customers’ move to supporting their businesses with high quality digital interactions,” Diane Greene, senior vice president of Google’s cloud business, said in a blog post, referring to application program interface products.

Apigee counts among its customers Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., AT&T Inc., Live Nation Entertainment Inc. and Burberry Group PLC. Walgreens uses Apigee to offer APIs and analyze how the tools are being used. Developers, for instance, can easily incorporate a feature into their apps that allows users to print photos at any Walgreens store, Greene said.

Google has been working on bulking up its enterprise-focused products, having lagged behind Amazon and Microsoft in selling its public cloud computing software to companies. The Apigee acquisition will also help support Google’s own set of APIs, which include ones that allow developers to pull information from YouTube as well as the Translate and Maps software to embed in their own apps.

“They’re looking for assets to build out their cloud business,” said James Cordwell, an analyst at Atlantic Equities. “Clearly this fits into that area and they are looking for specific niches where they can really differentiate themselves.”

Microsoft Alphabet Google

More from Microsoft

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +