Google to Open Source Sky Map, Close Picnik, Social Graph API and Urchin

To give more focus on core products, Google is planning to merge, open-source, or phase out some of its products in the coming months. Google Message Continuity (GMC), Google Sky Map, Needlebase, Picnik, Social Graph API, Urchin are the six of google’s popular products that are going to undergo merging, open sourcing or merging shortly.

Google will be open-sourcing Sky Map and are collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University in a partnership that will see further development of Sky Map as a series of student projects.

• Google Message Continuity (GMC): In December 2010 we launched an email disaster recovery product for enterprise customers that use Google’s cloud to back up emails originally sent or received in an on-premise, Microsoft Exchange system. In the time since google launched, hundreds of businesses signed up for it. By comparison, in that same time, millions of businesses move entirely to the cloud with Google Apps, benefitting from disaster recovery capabilities built directly into Apps. Current GMC customers will be able to use GMC for the duration of their contract and are encouraged to consider using Google Apps as their primary messaging and collaboration platform.
• [advt]Google Sky Map: This app was created by half a dozen Googlers at the Pittsburgh office in their 20 percent time to show off the amazing capabilities of the sensors in the first-generation Android phones and offer a window into the sky. Since google launched the tool in 2009, google have managed to share our passion with more than 20 million Android users. Google will be open-sourcing Sky Map and are collaborating with Carnegie Mellon University in a partnership that will see further development of Sky Map as a series of student projects.
• Needlebase: Google will retire this data management platform, which it acquired from ITA Software, on June 1, 2011. The technology is being evaluated for integration into Google’s other data-related initiatives.
• Picnik: Gogle will retire the service on April 19, 2012 so the Picnik team can continue creating photo-editing magic across Google products. You can download a zip file of your creations through Picnik Takeout or copy them to Google+. As of now, the premium service is free to everyone. Premium members will receive a full refund in the coming weeks.
• Social Graph API: This API makes information about the public connections between people on the web available for developers. The API isn’t experiencing the kind of adoption we’d like, and is being deprecated as of today. It will be fully retired on April 20, 2012.
• Urchin: In 2005 google acquired Urchin, whose online web analytics product became the foundation for Google Analytics, helping businesses of all sizes measure their websites and online marketing. Google will fully committed to building an industry-leading online analytics product, so it is saying goodbye to the client-hosted version, known as Urchin Software. New Urchin Software licenses will no longer be available after March 2012.