Google Buys Israeli

According to the Blogosphere and HAARETZ, Google bought the Israeli start-up iRows, which develops online spreadsheets. If the reports are correct, this is the first Google acquisition in Israel to-date. For a better explanation, and let’s face it, just better writing, see the story below.

Google buys first Israeli startup: iRows

By Lior Haner

Google has bought its first Israeli startup, iRows, which has developed a browser-based spreadsheet service.

“Access your spreadsheets from anywhere. Nothing to download, all you need is a browser,’ iRows explains on its home page.

Actually, Google already has an online spreadsheet service, Google spreadsheets, but apparently feels that iRows can help it create a better product.

Google has had a quite a busy year in Israel. Just a few months ago it opened its first local sales office, and then announced the establishment of two new research and development centers here.

The story of Google and iRows was broken by the Israeli blogging site thecoils.com. The site claims that iRows’ two founders will not lose the rights to their developments. They will be employed by Google Israel and continue developing their products, thecoils says. But TheMarker has learned that this is more than a rumor: the company’s two founders, Yoah Bar-David and Itai Raz, started working for Google a month and a half ago.

If accurate, it would be an atypical deal for the business world, where a company that gets sold usually loses all rights to its products.

Google announced last week the acquisition of Jotspot, which offers several processing options including word processing, electronic spreadsheet creation, and calendar activities via wiki, a common editing interface. The two acquisitions should help Google in its battle against Microsoft in the office applications arena.

Though iRows has made a splash in the online world, its founders have admitted in their blog that it never became profitable: advertising income did not cover the cost of server storage.

However, it seems that Google wanted to snatch up iRows before one of its competitors did.

Google refused to comment on the report, and iRows founders could not be reached for comment.

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