Google Bought One Of The Hottest Enterprise Android Startups
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Divide, founded in 2010, has raised $23 million from venture investors including Google's own VC arm, Google Ventures.
Divide was founded by former Morgan Stanley IT professionals who led the bank's mobile app development. The startup wanted to find a way to give IT departments all the control over corporate apps and data that they needed when people accessed them via their private smartphones and tablets, without giving IT the authority to completely wipe all data from someone's personal device.
As its name implies, this app divides an Android device into personal space and business space. In geek speak, this kind of app is called a "secure container." It's not the only app that does such a thing. VMware Horizon is another, and Samsung offers this on its Android devices too, via a feature called Samsung Knox.
But Divide was a really popular secure container app, downloaded over 200,000 times as of last October, TechCrunch reported. And users rated it with a four stars out of five on the Google Play app store.
According to the blog post from the Divide team, Divide is joining Google as an acquihire and the app will continue to be developed and supported "as it always has."