Did Google Purchase PushLife for Google Music?

Google has scooped up PushLife for a possible iTunes competitor for Android.

Friday Toronto-based PushLife announced that it was acquired by Google and now joins the search giant's Canadian engineering team. While specifics weren't provided, it's believed that the PushLife technology will be integrated into Android and Google's upcoming music service.

"When we started our journey in 2008, we set out to build immersive mobile experiences for people to play, organize, share and purchase digital content across multiple devices," the team said in a public statement. "But we think there's a lot more work to do in the mobile space, like improving the way applications look and making them easier to use. And as Google is driving innovation on the mobile web across a wide variety of areas, we thought joining the company would be a perfect fit."

PushLife was founded in 2008 by former Research In Motion corporate development executive Ray Reddy. Before the acquisition, PushLife's technology consisted of a media player (smartphone) and a media manager (PC), allowing the user to import libraries directly from iTunes and Windows Media Player to any non-Apple device. The suite also allowed users to share music via Twitter, edit ID3 tags on the go and more.

Additionally, PushLife also provided the baseline tech for the Virgin Mobile Live software offered in Canada and the UK. Virgin Mobile used the technology to develop mobile apps which combined the user's personal music collection with tunes available on the carrier's online store. This allowed for quick, one-click in-app purchases (and carrier billing) without having to exit the mobile app.

PushLife was reportedly working on a free version for BlackBerry and Android devices when Google made its proposal. PushLife has thus removed all signs of the software in progress from its website, indicating that the beta service offered for BlackBerry devices will eventually come to a close. There also isn't a listing for PushLife on the Android Market.

"The past three years have been an incredible ride and, while we will be eventually discontinuing the PushLife service, we look forward to more adventures at Google," the team said.

For now, we know that Google plans to launch a music service offering 5 GB of cloud storage. We've also seen an upgraded Android Music app that allows the user to stream music from the virtual space. We've also seen Amazon's similar offering, allowing users to purchase digital music and store/upload the files in the cloud. Customers can stream the music back through the browser-based desktop player or the Amazon MP3 app on Android.

But the inclusion of PushLife could mean more than just importing music from iTunes and Windows Media Player. There's a possibility Google plans to launch an iTunes competitor, allowing users to purchase music directly from Google.