In November last year, Google had announced the acquisition of Fitbit, known for making wearable fitness tracking devices. Now, more than a year after the announcement, Google has finally completed the acquisition process. For those who are unaware, the search engine giant had purchased Fitbit for about $2.1 billion.
Last month, the European Union approved the acquisition proposal, paving way for Google to get the ownership of the popular wearables maker. James Park, co-founder and CEO of Fitbit said in a letter that the company would continue to be device-agnostic, making products that work with both iPhones and Android devices.
Further, both the companies reiterated that this deal was always about “devices, not data.” James Park said that the users’ health and wellness data won’t be used for Google ads and the data will be kept separate from other Google ad data.
So far, it seems that Fitbit will continue to operate as a distinct brand from Google and it remains to be seen how the company changes under the new ownership. When Google acquired Nest, it kept operating independently but now it has become a sub-brand of Google’s hardware division.
It will be interesting to see if Fitbit gets rid of its current software in order to let Google experiment with its own software for wearable devices. The fact remains that the acquisition of this company gives Google an opportunity to make “Made by Google” wearable devices. Nonetheless, we expect the company to keep releasing wearable devices in the market but only time will tell if the experience improves with Google’s resources or the tech giant makes Fitbit its test lab for software.
