Microsoft acquires Acompli

http://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2014/12/01/microsoft-acquires-acompli-provider-innovative-mobile-email-apps/

by nithinr6 • 12 years ago

114 66 12 years ago

blogs.microsoft.com

Yeri• 12 years ago

I guess the surprise is kind of gone. ;)

hbbio• 12 years ago

Any clue about the acquisition price?

Edit: Their business model was we-will-see-later, so being acquired should definitely have been one of the options.

"How is the Acompli mobile app free?

The full-featured Acompli app is completely free for everyone. Acompli is a well-funded company that will later make paid services available to companies."

uptown4• 12 years ago

Over $200 million according to Recode.

http://recode.net/2014/12/01/microsoft-buys-mobile-email-sta...

jkaljundi2• 12 years ago

Had they raised more than the $7.3m Series A? Any idea on headcount and user/revenue numbers? EDIT: As I understand, the service was free, so no revenues.

uptown4• 12 years ago

To revoke GMail access to Acompli/Microsoft, go here: https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions

thanksgiving2• 12 years ago

I wouldn't use a third party client for something as critical as my Google mail account anyways.

uptown4• 12 years ago

It's why I've stayed away from Mailbox.

tjpd• 12 years ago

Would you mind clarifying why? I'm not sure I understand the concern. https://www.acompli.com/security/

rattray• 12 years ago

Can anyone explain why he's being downvoted? A lot of people around here dislike Microsoft, and as someone who doesn't, I much prefer this helpful tip to a long rant about how the world will end.

jkaljundi2• 12 years ago

Wonder when we'll see more startups going more aggressively into replacing e-mail, interoperating with it or adding features on top of it.

Of course have heard all the arguments against e-mail killers and why that won't happen.

Will it?

3rd3• 12 years ago

While this app seems polished and well crafted, I find this acquisition surprising. I can see no real innovation here besides combining convenient, known features in one app. Nothing that depends on patents and nothing Microsoft couldn’t build. Am I missing something?

jtfairbank• 12 years ago

Could be for many reasons:

* The cost of acquisition is less than the cost of developing it themselves. * An aqui-hire. Microsoft wants to pick up the dev talent and skillsets at Accompli. * To prevent a competitor from getting them. Maybe there was other interest that would let a competitor move in on existing Microsoft products. * To continue to build its 'modern' image. There's a lot of additional branding to do if they do it themselves, buying Acompli gives them some nice press and puts the Microsoft brand in front of Acompli's users (which may not be Microsoft's traditional demographic).

hyp02• 12 years ago

To prevent a competitor from getting them.

Yes, or becoming a competitor, signalled by having users and getting more. "Strategic" aquisitions often seem absurdly high, unless seen as a threat to the future of the acquirer. You can be a threat without being fundamentally new.

winter_blue• 12 years ago

The cost of acquisition is less than the cost of developing it themselves.

Would it really cost over $200 million to clone Acompli?

nilkn2• 12 years ago

I've used it for a while on my Android phone, and it's not even that polished. It's generally been somewhat buggy. In fact, until a week ago or so, the swipe gestures for archiving/scheduling were horribly broken on Android. The app still crashes sometimes or takes an abnormally long time to refresh after archiving an email.

I still use it because the combination of scheduling/archiving emails and auto-categorizing them as Focused or Other just works really well for my work email. I haven't found another approach to Inbox Zero for my work email that is this simple and effective.

I highly doubt it would cost Microsoft anywhere near $200M to build this themselves. I'm not sure what the motivation behind this purchase is. I'm not really loyal to the product at all, for instance. I'll switch the moment a more polished alternative comes out that has the same features.

frandroid• 12 years ago

I'm not sure it occupies the same niche, but have you had a look at Google Inbox?

presty• 12 years ago

btw, 200M? Wow..

o0-0o• 12 years ago

I use this for access to my companies exchange server from my android device. I'd imagine a lot of other folks use it like this as well.

curiousDog• 12 years ago

$200 million, for an email app from a company that was setup ~1.5 yrs ago. Has the whole world gone mad?

adrianlmm• 12 years ago

I've seen worse.

robsharp• 12 years ago

I'm not sure how much the age of the company matters. If they have customers and/or revenue, that determines what they're worth much more than age.

Hermel• 12 years ago

It matters as an indicator of how long it would take to rebuild acompli from scratch.

blumkvist• 12 years ago

You have a lot to learn about M&A strategy.

bhouston• 12 years ago

Does anyone know how popular was their app? How fast was it growing?

joelandren• 12 years ago

Absolute no brainer. Product was well-crafted and I don't know why no one combined email and calendar before, but this made my life a lot easier and I'm iPhone/Gmail. For exchange users this must be a quantum leap ahead.

rdo• 12 years ago

Acompli sounds very similar to the native functionality of Windows Phone OS.

ommunist2• 12 years ago

OK, I 've got the signal. Google buys email app company, what was it name? Some birdy, wasn't it. And Google shuts it down. Now MS buys email app company...

The is something important in email for big ones, they do not want small ones there it seems. Just paranoid.

Before mobile era there was incredible mail <s>app</s> programme - Calypso. Dead before Google became IPO. No one wanted to support it after it was open sourced. Probably it would be better for it to be bought by some Microsoft. Outlook could learn UTF-8 in subject lines a bit earlier.

UPD: on a second thought. I can see mutt and alpine behave very similarly in terminal apps from iOS. Why, why people like GUI mail so much? Perhaps Calendar integration is the answer?

UPD: Yeah, lads, it was Calypso. Survived till v3.3, but never did better.

balls187• 12 years ago

Some birdy, wasn't it.

Sparrow

ommunist2• 12 years ago

Good one still remembers it. Do you remember Calypso? The end is still the same. Few years will pass, and no one will remember those. Only Google and MS Office. Ah, and mutt for the dedicated.

orand• 12 years ago

The best feature about Acompli is that when your corporate IT goon tries to remote wipe your device from the Exchange server, they can only wipe your email, not your entire device. Most people don't realize that by using the default iOS and Android mail clients to connect to an Exchange server, they're implicitly giving it the ability to remotely wipe their entire mobile device.

arthurcolle2• 12 years ago

No way! you serious? Source?

benjarrell• 12 years ago

Any Exchange admin can confirm that. It is interesting the array of devices people add to their 'work' email.

spinchange• 12 years ago

I wish there were more publicized about this. I was setting up my wife's exchange-based work email with the default mail app in Android and was prompted with some really crazy permissions that were to the basic effect you mention. She decided that she didn't want her corporate office to have that much power over her own personal device just for the added convenience of being able to check work email on it. I'm going to mention this app to her and give it a try instead.

sp_nster• 12 years ago

Yep. Probably a MDM application like MobileIron or Airwatch.

Your wife made a decision most people miss because they are so used to skipping to yes. And wouldn't it suck if your IT department wiped your entire personal device including those vacation pictures of your recently deceased grandma. This happens way more often then you know.

This total control decision is why a container approach (give power to wipe what is the container only) to enabling corporate data is one I favor.

jacalata• 12 years ago

There are plenty of other apps available already - TouchDown [0] and Nine [1] are the two I've heard the most positive reviews about (I don't know anyone who uses Accompli).

[0] http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/smartphones/review-touchdow... [1]: http://www.androidpolice.com/2014/02/12/hands-on-nine-is-a-c...]

sandymcm• 12 years ago

If your company has a BYOD policy, it should include the FYI that IT might wipe your device if you quit or get fired.

That's the bad news. The good news is this feature of Exchange also gives you the ability to remote wipe your personal device from Outlook Web Access (i.e. Exchange webmail) if it gets lost or stolen.

valevk• 12 years ago

And that's the reason I still fight everyday with non-mobile owa interface...

tracker1• 12 years ago

I just favor IMAP...

y0ghur7_xxx• 12 years ago

That's why I use davmail¹ -> owa to access my corporate mail over imap instead of exchange directly.

¹http://davmail.sourceforge.net/

what_ever2• 12 years ago

Does it support notifications for emails which go into a folder? I have seen only 9folders supporting it till date.

Osmium2• 12 years ago

Most people don't realize that by using the default iOS and Android mail clients to connect to an Exchange server, they're implicitly giving it the ability to remotely wipe their entire mobile device.

Is there a way to disable this, e.g. using Apple Configurator or otherwise?

grinich2• 12 years ago

Just to be a bit more clear-- the difference here is with device provisioning using Mobile Device Management (MDM) services, not necessarily the default OS apps.

The user enrollment process doesn't necessarily require giving permissions beyond mail/contacts/calendar access. But many organizations take advantage of the opportunity to use pre-baked profiles which restrict behaviors, auto-configure VPN with client certs, activate features like remote wipe, etc.

We dealt with a lot of this when building the ActiveSync module for the Inbox[1] sync engine, which works with all Exchange servers and offers a modern REST API. (ie: like Twilio/Stripe for email)

https://www.inboxapp.com/

[1] Google stole our name last month. :(

stephenitis• 12 years ago

huge congrats to Accompli team! They were posted at Heavybit Industeries until recently, I got the chance to second hand see Javier as a leader who gravitates talent and happiness with the fellow employees.

Here is a talk by him entitled the first million is the hardest. http://www.heavybit.com/library/video/2013-05-21-javier-solt...

walterbell• 12 years ago

Informative interview, thanks!

ams61103• 12 years ago

Well good for Acompli... and I mean that, though I've never heard of them. But it's sort of sad that it's almost 2015 and we're still building email, contact, calendar, and to-do managers.

larrybud• 12 years ago

Realize that when using Acompli, all your email flows through their servers. That means Acompli is storing your credentials. It's unfortunate that Acompli hides this fact through hand-waving.

On a personal level, I say "no thanks" to this. On a corporate level, people should realize that this violates many corporate infosec policies.

Microsoft acquires Acompli

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