MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — () announced Tuesday morning that it has purchased social-mapping company Waze in an attempt to boost the real-time traffic information on its Maps app and possibly to keep other Silicon Valley tech giants from acquiring the Israeli company.
Google announced on its corporate blog Tuesday morning that its acquisition of Waze had already closed, but declined to give a purchase price for the private company, though reports Monday pegged the price at $1.3 billion. Waze is a real-time mapping application in which users share traffic info in real-time to help avoid backups, with the app reading where drivers are and sharing that information to help others.
“This fast-growing community of traffic-obsessed drivers is working together to find the best routes from home to work, every day,” .
Waze had been the subject of several acquisition reports — that Apple was prepared to offer as much as $500 million for the company, but ; and was , but later reports suggested that , a deal-killer.
Google will not require Waze employees based in Israel to move to Silicon Valley immediately, saying in Tuesday’s blog post that they will operate independently in Israel “for now.” The company also has a Palo Alto headquarters where most of the top executives, such as CEO Noam Bardin, work daily.
“Nothing practical will change here at Waze,” Bardin wrote in . “We will maintain our community, brand, service and organization — … (we) are all committed to our vision for many years to come.”
Google stock moved 1.2 percent higher Monday, when reports suggested the move was imminent, but were trading slightly lower Tuesday morning: at 9 a.m. Pacific time, the end of the morning trading session in New York, Google shares had dipped $6.40, or 0.7 percent, to $883.82.
Contact Jeremy C. Owens at 408-920-5876; follow him at Twitter.com/mercbizbreak
