Ramla SoniGoogle has said it has completed its $2.6bn (€2.38bn, £2bn) buyout of big data analytics firm Looker Data Sciences following approval from the UK’s competition watchdog.
The cash deal which aims to build on the success of Google Cloud’s BigQuery, a tool for managing large datasets, was announced in June and is the first major acquisition for new cloud business CEO Thomas Kurian.
Looker’s tool enables analysts and other workers to define calculations for items such as revenue or high-value customers. It then visualises trends in their data without writing complicated scripts.
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The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said its investigation found the deal would not harm the impact quality of service or competition in the market for data analytics tools and software.
The CMA added that the deal was unlikely to lead to increased prices or lower quality as the two are not considered close competitors by businesses who use business intelligence tools with other providers such as Microsoft, Oracle, Tableau, SAP and IBM in the market.
“Although Google had the ability to make it difficult for rivals to access the Google-generated data they need from online advertising and web analytics services, there was no strong evidence they would have the incentive to do this,” the CMA said.
The US Department of Justice and the Austrian Federal Competition Authority have also approved the deal.
