Nik Software, developer of popular iOS and Mac photo editor Snapseed, has today announced that it has been acquired by Google. The Web's top search engine must see a lot of potential in this one piece of software, but there's more to the picture than that. Dfine 2.0 is another popular piece of software by Nik Software, aimed at photographers rather than average photo-takers. It removes noise from a photograph in a professional fashion and is an alternative to the more economical Noiseware by Imagenomic. There's also HDR Efex Pro, an alternative to Photomatix. These two creations would be extremely valuable to Google's mobile market.
Google now has a fantastic team of developers who are able to help them further improve free utilities like Picasa and the online photo editor found in Google+. Nik Software can also help improve the photo editing software in Android, possibly adding what it's done with Snapseed. The developer could even launch an Android version of the app, supported by Google and even included with Nexus devices by default. This would give the corporation an upper edge on even Apple, who has lacking built-in photo editing tools in iOS; iPhoto is $4.99 and does a much better job, but why should people need to purchase it?
The Nik Software team has yet to reveal its plans for the future of its software, and hopefully this acquisition is for the best. Google has not said what it will be using the team's skills for, but an Instagram alternative or better filters for Google+ and Android's integrated photo editor would be plausible since Facebook is the main competitor of Google's social network and it owns the once-hipster photo sharing service. Snapseed's editing is currently far better than Instagrams, though a bit more advanced as well. Google will likely simplify things, but how much?
Source: Nik Software Education Blog