Google has been in the news for its acquisition of YouTube. But it is also consolidating its grip on the web-based application market. In March I described iRows, a web-based multi-user spreadsheet, speculating that Google (which had just bought Writely, a web-based multi-user wordprocessor) might be interested in iRows, an Israeli start-up. Earlier this month, iRows stopped taking registrations, and will stop operating at the end of 2006. The two founders of iRows, Yoah Bar-david and Itai Raz, have been recruited by Google, which already has its own web-based spreadsheet system, sitting alongside its (ex-Writely) wordprocessor. Meanwhile, Google has bought JotSpot, a sophisticated wiki application, which has been used by the TUC for its on-line course development and management manual. When JotSpot starts taking registrations again - whether as JotSpot, or as a Google-branded application (one assumes the latter), it will be a free service.
(If I had to predict what's next, I would say that Google will acquire a web-based audio and/or video-conferencing service.)
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