Microsoft just announced it has acquired mobile email app provider Acompli, which currently has apps for both Android and iOS.
Microsoft says the move is part of its effort to “help people accomplish more with their mobile devices,” an effort that also includes its recent launch of Office mobile apps. Rajesh Jha, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Outlook and Office 365, said in a blog post:
In a world where more than half of email messages are first read on a mobile device, it’s essential to give people fantastic email experiences wherever they go. The Acompli team is passionate about this quest. Their app provides innovative ways to focus on what’s important in your inbox, to schedule meetings, and work with attachments and files. Users love how it connects to all email services and provides a single place to manage email with a focus on getting things done. It consistently receives enthusiastic feedback from users and strong app store ratings. Reviews have called it “your new best friend,” “brilliant” and “must have for BYOD.”
We’re excited about what’s possible as we build on the app’s success and bring it together with work currently in progress by the Outlook team. Our goal is to deliver fantastic cross-platform apps that support the variety of email services people use today and help them accomplish more.
Acompli CEO Javier Soltero also blogged about the news, saying:
A lot has happened in the last 18 months. We started as a small team huddled up at Heavybit, quietly juggling the balancing act of delivering a reliable email service while creating a fundamentally new mobile email experience. With the amazing support and patience of our early users we got to a usable email app. Soon after that we were able to show more people what Acompli was and everyone started getting excited. We then launched and earned the love and support of mobile users around the world who both showered us with compliments and also told us (sometimes quite candidly) what we needed to do better at.
Soon after launch we started working with a number of enterprise IT departments who believed, like we do, that great products need to be “Loved by Users, and Trusted by IT.” Right around this time we began conversations with the folks at Microsoft about how we could go farther by integrating the capabilities of their Office 365 platform into our product while continuing to provide amazing support for email and file services from Apple, Dropbox, Google, and Box. Those conversations led to today, where we have decided the opportunity to join forces in pursuit of a better, faster, more powerful email experience is something we can do better as one company.
Acompli users’ apps and accounts will continue to work for the time being. Soltero says more product plan updates will come as the company becomes part of Microsoft.
Image via Acompli