In its time at Google, SketchUp has become one of the most popular 3D modeling tools in the world. With over 30 million SketchUp activations in just the last year, we’re awfully proud of our accomplishments. But there’s still so much we want to do, and we think we’ve found a way forward that will benefit everyone—our product, our team and especially our millions of users.
That’s why I’m sharing today that the SketchUp team and technology will be leaving Google to join Trimble. We’ll be better able to focus on our core communities: modelers who have been with us from the beginning, as well as future SketchUppers who have yet to discover our products. Designers, builders and makers of things have always been the heart and soul of SketchUp. With Trimble’s commitment to invest in our growth, we’ll be able to innovate and develop new features better than ever before.
For those of you in the architecture, engineering and construction industries, the knowledge and experience Trimble will add to the SketchUp effort are obvious. Together with our new colleagues at Trimble, we plan to continue making our tools for the building professions as innovative, intuitive and (dare I say) fun to use as we always have.
If you’re one of the many, many people who use SketchUp for something else—from education to woodworking, geo-modeling to movie-making—rest assured that there will be a SketchUp for you, too. Our mission has always been to make 3D modeling tools that anyone can use. The free version of SketchUp is an important part of our world as well, and that isn’t changing in the least.
Thanks to Google, more people than we ever imagined possible have been introduced to SketchUp. Thanks to Trimble, we’ll be able to continue to make SketchUp into the tool that we—and you—have always hoped it would become. With a strong wind at our backs and plenty of sunshine ahead, this voyage just keeps getting more exciting.
據路透社報道，Trimble導航公司已經同意購買Google的SketchUp 3D建模平台，但未披露價格。這家公司在一項聯合聲明中稱，Trimble將會與Google合作開發SketchUp 3D Warehouse，後者是一個在線倉庫，可供用戶查找、共享3D模型，並就此進行協作。Trimble是一家生產測量、繪圖及海上導航設備的公司，成立於1978年。根據其網站的介紹，該公司在GPS技術開發和實際應用方面處於行業領先地位。SketchUp則是一個免費的3D建模平台，可幫助用戶創建包括3D模型在內的模型集，並讓其共享個全球各地的建模者。2006年SketchUp被Google收購時還是一家很小的初創企業，現在已經擁有了數百萬的活躍用戶。光去年一年SketchUp的激活數就超過了3000萬。這項交易預計會在2012年的第二季度完成。
另外值得一提的是這項交易不僅包括SketchUp 本身，還包括整個團隊都將轉入新公司，用以幫助Trimble Navigation 開發導航、調查和製圖工具。不過，SketchUp 也並非將和Google 完全脫離關係。 Trimple 將會與Google 聯合繼續運營SketchUp 的3D 數據倉庫。
SketchUp 的團隊聲稱，此次交易並不會影響大多數正在使用免費版的用戶，因為對公司而言，這是一個非常重要的用戶群體。
消息來源:sketchup blogspot
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