Google Cloud Names Ex-Xively VP As Go-To-Market IoT Lead

Google Cloud has named a former Xively vice president as its new go-to-market lead for the Internet of Things following the company's $50 million acquisition of Xively from LogMeIn earlier this year.

According to Mario Finocchiaro's LinkedIn page, he started in the new go-to-market position at Google Cloud this month. He had served as vice president of Xively, which was previously LogMeIn's IoT device management platform, since 2013.

With Finocchario's appointment, Google Cloud's acquisition of Xively has officially closed, a company spokesman confirmed to CRN. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company plans to share updates on its integration plans with Xively in the future, the spokesman said.

Allen Falcon, CEO of Google Cloud partner Cumulus Global, told CRN that Google's acquisition of Xively shows that the company is "serious about improving its market position in the IoT space." Compared with Amazon and Microsoft, he said Google is "somewhat playing catch-up" right now.

"Amazon and Microsoft have not just a had good breadth of IoT offerings themselves, but through third parties they both have pretty viable ecosystems and partner networks that understand how to leverage and use their tools," Falcon said. "Bringing in someone who's going to focus on marketing and building the brand of Google Cloud in the IoT space will only help accelerate that effort."

Google announced its plan to acquire Xively in mid-February to deepen its technology and engineering expertise for IoT Core, Google's fully managed service that securely connects, manages and ingests data from globally dispersed devices. The company said at the time that approximately 45 employees would join its team.

"Our customers will benefit from Xively’s extensive feature set and flexible device management platform, paired with the security and scale of Google Cloud," Anthony Passemard, product management lead for Google Cloud Platform, said in a blog post announcing the deal.

Prior to selling Xively, LogMeIn had once seen the IoT platform becoming the Boston-based connectivity company's largest business over time, but the division failed to turn into a significant growth engine. LogMeIn had acquired the business when it was known as Pachube for $15 million in 2011. But despite years of efforts, Xively only managed to bring in $3 million in revenue last year, a drop in the bucket for a company whose total non-GAAP revenue in 2017 surpassed $1 billion.

To make its IoT division a success under Google Cloud, Falcon said the company won't be able to increase market share without partners, "simply because every implementation is unique."

"So Google Cloud can provide all the Lego pieces, but you need a team that understands the business and the technical requirements to put them together so that they function properly and provide the data and analytics to make it worthwhile," Falcon said.