Public cloud market leader Amazon Web Services has bought Cloud9, a privately held company that sells an online, collaborative integrated development environment (IDE). Terms were not disclosed.
“We have been acquired by Amazon!” CEO and founder Ruben Daniels wrote in a blog post today, titled “Great News!” “We’re looking forward to working together [with AWS] on terrific customer offerings in the future. In the meantime, you’ll still be able to depend on and continue to invest safely in Cloud9,” Daniels wrote. “Over time, we’ll work with AWS to do even more on your behalf.”
It’s unclear what use AWS will make of Cloud9, or whether Cloud9’s standalone offerings might disappear once the company is integrated into AWS. The Seattle-based tech company didn’t mention the purchase on its website or in its blogs. AWS declined to comment. Also unclear is the fate of Cloud9’s support for Google Cloud Platform, announced in January.
Cloud9’s IDE offers an Ubuntu-based alternative to traditional desktop-based development environments. It allows online Salesforce-oriented coding in the Apex programming language, using the Visualforce mark-up language and Lightning app builder. But it also offers general-purpose coding tools, including code completion, a debugger, a customizable user interface, an image editor and live previews of how apps will look on more than 300 combinations of browser and OS.
Founded in 2010, Cloud9 has a development team in Amsterdam and its main office in San Francisco.
Update: “AWS has been trying hard to build out its developer offerings, and clearly they saw it as important to build a better portal for their services, to support their growing developer cloud offerings,” said Al Hilway, an IDC analyst.
