By buying Groupon, Google wouldn't have to spend their own developers' time to create what is now Google Offers. And time is expensive. Time spent on Google Offers was not time spent on, let's say, Google+.
Customers: E-mail addresses of 115M people have to be worth something. To Google, those addresses are probably worth more than something.
Also, Google has something Groupon does not: real cash in their pockets. Groupon must spend a lot of $$$ on avertising; to Google, marketing would be virtualy free.
What I'm saying is this: Groupon is running itself into bankruptcy; Google probably found a way to use their own resources to make Groupon wildly profitable.
By buying Groupon, Google wouldn't have to spend their own developers' time to create what is now Google Offers. And time is expensive. Time spent on Google Offers was not time spent on, let's say, Google+.
Customers: E-mail addresses of 115M people have to be worth something. To Google, those addresses are probably worth more than something.
Also, Google has something Groupon does not: real cash in their pockets. Groupon must spend a lot of $$$ on avertising; to Google, marketing would be virtualy free.
What I'm saying is this: Groupon is running itself into bankruptcy; Google probably found a way to use their own resources to make Groupon wildly profitable.