Envista Inc. has reached an agreement with Internet search
giant
Google Inc
. (
GOOG
) to license its Google Maps Engine for location-aware apps on
its IRIS Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). None of the organizations
disclosed the financial aspect of the agreement.
Founded in 2006 by Rick Fiery and Marc Fagan, Envista provides
map-based solutions, which are delivered through the Internet to
consumers to help them manage their businesses efficiently. It
gives them real-time data about traffic and the exact location of
ongoing public works among other things so that they can avoid
those areas and other related information that may help them
deliver or manage businesses effectively.
IRIS, which is a cloud-based Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
technology, integrates with location-based web apps without any
hassle. This app is most crucial to utility, pipeline and other
industrial companies that have their business assets spread
across huge areas. Any disruption is detrimental to the business.
Thus, these business units require a constant monitoring
system.
Following the integration with the Google Maps Engine, IRIS
users will have a familiar tool to access their location-specific
data. The depth of Google's technology will enable them to
operate on a very large scale and across geographies and mobile
devices.
This could reduce risks, improve productivity and at the same
time provide useful insight for decision making. The Google map
powered IRIS apps can improve coordination among office
operations and project sites at remote locations by offering data
visualization at any point of time.
Google is quite active in the cloud space as it recently
acquired Talaria, an infrastructure startup company. Its
application server enables developers to code in a programming
language of their choice.
But most of the big technology companies have some offerings
targeting the cloud segment.
Amazon.com Inc
(
AMZN
), one of the major pioneers of cloud computing, modernized its
own data centers and launched a cloud-computing business for
external customers called Amazon Web Service (AWS) in 2006.
Recently,
Microsoft
(
MSFT
) acquired cloud-monitoring startup MetricsHub to boost its
cloud-based services.
Therefore, Google's strategy of acquisitions and agreements to
beat the competition may pay off going forward.
In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012, Google's gross revenue
(including TAC) touched a record $14.4 billion, representing
sequential and year-over-year increases of 2.3% and 36.2%,
respectively. Excluding the $1.5 billion contribution from
Motorola, revenues were up 21.9% from the year-ago quarter.
Google has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Rovi Corp.
(
ROVI
), another Internet services stock, has a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong
Buy).
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