Google on Thursday said it has acquired the Xively internet of things business from LogMeIn for $50 million.
The deal could strengthen Alphabet's efforts to take on Amazon and Microsoft in the public cloud business. All three companies' clouds have offerings for working with data from internet-connected devices.
With Xively, companies can connect new devices, manage them remotely and send data from the devices into other systems. Xively's customers include Halo Smart Labs, Lutron and New England BioLabs.
The division booked revenue of $3 million and $13 million of expenses in LogMeIn's 2017 fiscal year. About 45 Xively employees will join Google.
"Through this acquisition, Cloud IoT Core will gain deep IoT technology and engineering expertise, including Xively's advanced device management, messaging, and dashboard capabilities," Antony Passemard, head of product management for IoT and Pub/Sub at Google Cloud, wrote in a blog post.
Google Cloud CEO Diane Greene spoke about the importance of the internet of things during an appearance at Goldman Sachs' technology and internet conference in San Francisco earlier this week. "IoT is a pretty interesting area," she told Goldman Sachs analyst Heather Bellini.
LogMeIn acquired Xively in 2011 for $15 million.
Earlier this month Alphabet for the first time talked about how much revenue its Google Cloud Platform public cloud and G Suite portfolio of productivity apps bring in -- $1 billion per quarter. Meanwhile, market leader Amazon Web Services generated more than $5 billion in revenue in the same period.
Correction: This story originally misstated the details of LogMeIn's acquisition of Xively. It paid $15 million in 2011.