Should Google make a move for Atlassian?
Google is increasingly courting developers, which means a move for developer-centric Atlassian could make a lot of sense.
Google needs developers. Atlassian has them. Reading Oliver Marks' report on Atlassian's progress and embrace of OpenSocial makes me think Atlassian's developer tools could be a good fit for a Google acquisition.
Atlassian offers an array of developer-focused productivity infrastructure. The company has been exceptionally successful by focusing on customer service and customer-centric development. Jira, Confluence, FishEye, and other Atlassian products may not register with your grandfather, but they're often the collaborative tools of choice for developers.
Enter Google. Google's mission is to organize the world's information, but to do that well it increasingly caters to software developers, its I/O conference being just the most visible example of this.
Google launched Google Code to host open-source projects and now claims tens of thousands of denizens. Making each of those projects more productive with Atlassian's tools could provide powerful incentives for more of the software world to revolve around Google, incentives that may be necessary as SourceForge strives to enrich its own developer experience.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer knows that Microsoft depends upon developers. Increasingly, Google will, too, as it fights Microsoft on multiple fronts with Android, Wave, and other open-source or open-access products.
Atlassian's developer products could help to feed Google's developer ambitions.
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