Your implying the cost to replicate the technology and gain the same traction would cost Google more then $50m.Not quite. I am implying that Google thinks the risk associated with doing it on their own is not worth the $50m for the acquisition.
It is way more complex than simply about tech and traction. ie. lets say google can build the same thing for $10M. But hey it might take them 2 years. In the same 2 years, a competition(Microsoft) might acquire Vark and turn it into a billion dollar competitor to google.
On the flip side, even if Google can build it for 10M and launch in 6 months, the risk from the other possibility is not worth the 40M in savings.
