Google Cloud made some big announcement this week, its second acquisition in just two weeks. The search giant’s cloud computing arm announced that it had acquired identity management startup Bitium. The deal will enable Google Cloud to compete more efficiently with cloud rival Microsoft Azure.

According to TechCrunch, Google Cloud has decided to acquire the startup to boost the company’s cloud identity management capabilities and competitive stakes. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but most of the Bitium employees will be joining the company’s cloud computing team.

The deal is expected to enhance the management of customer’s enterprise cloud implementation, including handling security levels and access policies on their Google Cloud and G Suite services, the TechCrunch reported.

About the target startup, Bitium

Founded in 2012 and based in Santa Monica, California, Bitium provides an enterprise-grade identity and access management (IAM) services that provide app management, single sign-on, and analytics for enterprise businesses. The Santa Monica Startup has been offering a single-stop solution for managing of the cloud computing services and apps, which include Google Apps, CRM, social networking, Microsoft Office 365, web-based collaboration and marketing tools.

In a recent blog post, the startup said that it will still support its existing customer base through the transition. But for now, it still unclear what next for Bitium after the startup becomes fully integrated into Google Cloud service.

Before its deal with Google, Bitium has managed to raise a total of $14.9 million in venture capital funding.

Bitium’s backers include Polaris Ventures and Resolute.vc, according to the latest data from startup profiler CrunchBase.

Google plans to use Bitium’s platform to augment its existing cloud-based IAM capabilities. More importantly, Bitium’s market-leading IAM technology will help Google Cloud compete against Microsoft Azure, which currently offers its own Azure Active Directory (AD) to provide an enterprise-grade cloud-based identity access and management service.

In other Google-related acquisition news

Google recently announced that it would acquire talent and intellectual property (IP) licenses from smartphone maker HTC. The Mountain View-based company has acquired HTC’s hardware team for a whopping $1.1 billion. The deal is expected to close by early next year, according to VentureBeat.

As part of the deal, certain HTC’s employees, mostly those who are working on the HTC Pixel smartphone, will join the search company in its Mountain View headquarters. In addition to HTC’s Pixel team, the search giant will also gain a non-exclusive license for HTC’s IP in a separate deal. However, terms of that IP agreement were not disclosed to the public.

Overall, the search giant gains full control of a world-class engineering team that is already familiar with HTC’s IP and the mobile hardware business. More importantly, it gives Google the resources it needs for its struggling smartphone business.
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