Reports have emerged today, which state that Google has acquired Agnilux, a mysterious hardware maker run by former employees of Cisco, TiVo and–most curiously–P.A. Semi.
Though once posited that the company was at work on some sort of server, Agnilux is a stealth startup that has evidently avoided VC funding in the name of secrecy. Nary a peep of what the company has been up to since its inception has ever made it to market.
It is the P.A. Semi link, however, which takes the rabbit hole deeper. P.A. Semi was acquired by Apple in 2008 for $278 million whereupon it was tasked to develop the Apple A4 SoC found in the iPad and, perhaps, the next iPhone. The employees that did not stay on with P.A. Semi in the transition to Apple’s ownership used the buyout funds to create and operate Agnilux–COO Mark Hayter is P.A. Semi’s former VP Hardware & System Architect, for example. Agnilux CEO Amarjit Gill, too, is a former P.A. Semi engineer.
Adding further mystery, Agnilux was actively courting Cisco, Microsoft and Texas Instruments for investments prior to shacking up with Google. All three companies have a vested interest in the mobile market: Cisco with WiMAX and LTE, Microsoft with Windows Phone 7 and Texas Instruments with their OMAP range of ARM SoCs, such as the OMAP3430 in the Motorola Droid. And, though it scarcely bears mentioning, Google has that little property called Android.
Disembarking from the Google/Apple war, the Agnilux acquisition could take another avenue entirely. It is possible, as Rethink Wireless suggests, that Google is investigating massive cloud server farms based on the extremely energy-efficient and *NIX-compatible ARM ISA. This, too, would explain the attention from Cisco, Texas Instruments and Microsoft. Cisco is all about enterprise server infrastructure; Texas Instruments’ ARM expertise would make it a suitable manufacturer for such designs; and Microsoft has long been trying to break the cloud nut, most recently with Windows Azure.
Whatever price Google paid for the acquisition is immaterial with respect to what they gained: experienced SoC engineers that spent at least six months at Apple during the development of the iPad, or significantly cheaper servers. Take your pick.
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