Googlers and shareholders alike have been clamoring for Google to sell off Nest for quite some time. Google has long resisted getting rid of the wayward Internet of Things dev house, but that doesn’t mean things have been rosy lately. Amid decidedly subpar sales figures, Nest co-founder Tony Fadell flew the coop. Thus far, his replacement, former Motorola bigwig Marwan Fawaz has found it a bit difficult to turn things around. As a cost cutting measure and a way to build a unified IoT platform, it was announced Tuesday that Google would be absorbing Nest’s Platform team, responsible for developing IoT devices and the software that they run on.
Nest has had a bit of a rough go of things, even since being scooped up by Google back in 2014. Their flagship product lineup has looked a bit sparse, with a rebranded product from a firm that they bought up being one of the most popular products for Nest. Debate still rages as to whether the world wasn’t ready for Nest, their products faltered against the competition, or the IoT market was headed in a different direction, but one thing everyone can agree upon is the fact that this move will put Nest in a better position, with more freedom to develop products and more direct input from Google.
Nest’s people will reportedly be working not only on a unified IoT platform for all Alphabet IoT products, but will be helping to work on Google Home and other living room platforms, such as Android TV. The division will be working under the watchful eye of Android head Hiroshi Lockheimer, who recently stepped up to the plate to run the show for more of the products that integrate with Android, a move that will hopefully drive platform unity and fight fragmentation outside of the smartphone and tablet space. No details surfaced as to how Nest will approach their own work while under Google’s roof, but it is to be assumed until somebody says otherwise that Nest’s own products will continue their development cycles. This is yet another move to make Alphabet’s companies a bit leaner by cutting budgets where possible and shifting people and resources to where they can be used the most efficiently.