AfterDawn: Tech news

Google sells off SketchUp tool

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 26 Apr 2012 7:18 User comments (5)

Google sells off SketchUp tool

Google has announced today that it has sold the popular 3D modeling software SketchUp to Trimble Navigation.
Financials of the deal were not posted.

Says John Bacus, Product Manager, SketchUp, in his blog post: "I'm sharing today that the SketchUp team and technology will be leaving Google to join Trimble. We'll be better able to focus on our core communities: modelers who have been with us from the beginning, as well as future SketchUppers who have yet to discover our products. Designers, builders and makers of things have always been the heart and soul of SketchUp. With Trimble's commitment to invest in our growth, we'll be able to innovate and develop new features better than ever before.

For those of you in the architecture, engineering and construction industries, the knowledge and experience Trimble will add to the SketchUp effort are obvious. Together with our new colleagues at Trimble, we plan to continue making our tools for the building professions as innovative, intuitive and (dare I say) fun to use as we always have."




Trimble will offer all new versions of Sketchup and will remain partnered with Google for the "SketchUp 3D warehouse," a repository online where fans can collaborate on models.

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5 user comments

127.4.2012 12:10

Great... sell it to a bunch of guys with purple fingers from counting beans all day... a bunch of dicks who see money not potential.

To play on pun... I feel awfully sketch-y about this.

227.4.2012 23:01

Originally posted by LordRuss:
Great... sell it to a bunch of guys with purple fingers from counting beans all day... a bunch of dicks who see money not potential.

To play on pun... I feel awfully sketch-y about this.
oh right because Google has this obligation handed down by the gods themselves to nurture and make sure that all humanity gets the benefit of everything. Give me a break, hope they made a killing off it. Their baby, their money, no one got a head chopped off like in the oil game, so stop being so hedonistic all of you who think every single freaking tech company has a moral obligation to help out every one and their mother who don't help out at all... Good for you Google.

328.4.2012 12:20

google could have made this useful if they wanted

428.4.2012 15:52

Originally posted by v62cobra:
oh right because Google has this obligation handed down by the gods themselves to nurture and make sure that all humanity gets the benefit of everything.
Not 'exactly' what I was getting at, so if you're going to quote me - get a firm grasp of my intentions before playing your version of 'home clairvoyance' & spouting off about people/things you know nothing about.

Besides 'hedonistic' isn't even used correctly here. If you're trying to say "we're" behaving wantonly or parsimoniously in lieu of just saying "being selfish bastards" & wow-ing us with 'smart-isms'; might I suggest a thesaurus & a propensity to use one. Say a attending a few advanced writing courses at a community college. [Did wonders for me]

My intentions had nothing to do with the gains/losses to Google, but the pros/cons with regards to the impact the new company will have on the future of the software. Nothing else. Not exactly a solution, but I see your comment leaving nothing to be desired either.

Now that your mountain out of a mole hill has left me wordy enough, I now have to elongate my explanation & state that Google's sale to Trimble Navigation would be somewhat akin to that of Chevy selling all their designs of the Camero to the Hitachi Corporation. And no, I'm not being out of context either.

Therefore, if you can't make the correlation, don't make a comment.
This message has been edited since its posting. Latest edit was made on 28 Apr 2012 @ 3:56

59.5.2012 20:51
ferdna1
Unverified new user

it sucks that there is no linux version avail.

Comments have been disabled for this article.

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