Deutsche Telekom-backed MobiledgeX has been acquired by Google.

Google purchased the San Francisco Edge computing management specialist from Deutsche Telekom on April 29 and announced its intention to open source the company’s code.

Launched in early 2018, MobiledgeX is an Edge computing management specialist aiming to develop a common orchestration layer for Edge computing assets. The company worked with around 25 operators, including Orange, BT, and Telefónica.

Financial details of the deal have not been released, nor have staffing changes been announced. However, MobiledgeX CEO Jason Hoffman will not be joining Google and has instead set up a consulting practice, S8 Advisory Partners, with MobileX VP James Blom. According to her LinkedIn account, MobileX COO Leah Maher has joined Google.

A spokesperson for the cloud giant confirmed the new acquisition: "We can confirm Google has acquired MobiledgeX, and we look forward to seeing its continued impact as an open source solution."

Deutsche Telekom said of this acquisition: “We are proud of the contributions MobiledgeX has made to the telco industry in various initiatives with the GSMA and operator community, and we look forward to seeing its continued impact as an open source solution.”

Earlier this year, after one of these initiatives with the GSMA, MobiledgeX claimed that version 3.1 of its Edge-Cloud platform enables ‘federation between any standards-based mobile Edge computing platform’.

The acquisition comes just shy of a year after an announcement of additional operator engagements and a new round of investments for MobiledgeX. Funding numbers were not released, but the company board was joined by Samsung and VMware, and new backers were also announced to be World Wide Technology and SK Telecom. In November 2021, the company joined the Open Grid Alliance.

Caroline Chappell, Cloud Research Direct at Analysys Mason said of the deal: “acquiring MobiledgeX and taking it open source fits well with Google’s strategy to become the open source champion of operator cloud-native network transformation, as evidenced by its joining of the Linux Foundation, for example, and recent joint Google/LF announcement of the Nephio cloud-native network automation initiative.”

“This is a good thing for MobiledgeX, but there are other Linux Foundation open source Edge initiatives, such as StarlingX, which Wind River is building on. What Google/LFN will need to do is to come up with a framework, perhaps along the lines of the one that the Open Grid Alliance is developing, that clearly shows how all these technologies/layers in the Edge orchestration stack work together to avoid further market fragmentation.”

MobileX's site and social pages have been taken offline, and there has been no mention of the acquisition on Google's sites.

The acquisition is the latest by the Google Cloud Platform, including Cybersecurity companies Mandiant and Siemplify.