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Microsoft acquires Acompli
- Yeri 12y agoI guess the surprise is kind of gone. ;)
- hbbio 12y agoAny 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."
- uptown 12y agoOver $200 million according to Recode. http://recode.net/2014/12/01/microsoft-buys-mobile-email-startup-acompli-for-more-than-200-million/ http://recode.net/2014/12/01/microsoft-buys-mobile-email-sta...
- jkaljundi 12y agoHad 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.
- uptown 12y agoTo revoke GMail access to Acompli/Microsoft, go here: https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions
- thanksgiving 12y agoI wouldn't use a third party client for something as critical as my Google mail account anyways.
- uptown 12y agoIt's why I've stayed away from Mailbox.
- tjpd 12y agoWould you mind clarifying why? I'm not sure I understand the concern. https://www.acompli.com/security/ https://www.acompli.com/security/
- uptown 12y agoIncreasing the number of 3rd parties authorized to access your email accounts increase the potential attack vectors for malicious people to utilize. If you only use GMail's interface, then you need to trust Google to protect your account. If you grant Acompli access to your account, now you've got to trust two companies with that responsibility. It's basic cost/benefit in terms of what you get from providing a 3rd party with that access - and in a day when email is still one of the more critical achilles heels in resetting account access, it's advisable to keep that access as limited as possible.
- thanksgiving 12y agoThank you. I couldn't have put it better myself. Gmail is the only reason I have two factor authentication in my Google account.
- rattray 12y agoCan 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.
- jkaljundi 12y agoWonder 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 12y agoWhile 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 12y agoCould 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).
- hyp0 12y 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.
- venomsnake 12y agoThat is one problem I have with big exits lately. No one is allowed to grow or develop as independent company.
- bdcravens 12y ago"No one is allowed to grow or develop as independent company." Of course you are. Just reject the offer. You don't think Uber/AirBnB/Dropbox etc have received offers we've not heard about?
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- presty 12y agorelated: http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/26/microsoft-appears-to-pre-announce-its-purchase-of-email-startup-acompli/?ncid=rss http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/26/microsoft-appears-to-pre-an... btw, 200M? Wow..
- o0-0o 12y agoI 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 12y ago$200 million, for an email app from a company that was setup ~1.5 yrs ago. Has the whole world gone mad?
- adrianlmm 12y agoI've seen worse.
- robsharp 12y agoI'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 12y agoIt matters as an indicator of how long it would take to rebuild acompli from scratch.
- misterbwong 12y agoHow long it takes to rebuild an app really isn't that important. Revenue + traction trump technical sophistication 9 times out of 10.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ams6110 12y agoRebuilding isn't the hard part. It's acquiring the users, which gets into a whole host of non-technical things such as timing, messaging/marketing, word-of-mouth, and a good dose of just plain luck. Absolutely no guarantee Microsoft could do that even if their app was technically identical or even objectively better (see Windows Phone).
- blumkvist 12y agoYou have a lot to learn about M&A strategy.
- 12y ago
- joelandren 12y agoAbsolute 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 12y agoAcompli sounds very similar to the native functionality of Windows Phone OS.
- ommunist 12y agoOK, 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.
- orand 12y agoThe 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.
- arthurcolle 12y agoNo way! you serious? Source?
- benjarrell 12y agoAny Exchange admin can confirm that. It is interesting the array of devices people add to their 'work' email.
- arthurcolle 12y agohow is that legal?
- chrisBob 12y agoHow is it illegal to give someone permission to remote wipe your device?
- pc86 12y agoThere is no question of legality, you are granting the user that access/ability by connecting to Exchange.
- Osmium 12y ago> you are granting the user that access/ability by connecting to Exchange Does iOS present a warning to this effect when you add an Exchange account? If not, they should. I have an Exchange account set up from my university and don't recall ever seeing anything. Also, didn't Gmail used to have Exchange support? If this is true, does that mean Google had the ability to remotely wipe any iOS device that was using Gmail through Exchange?
- stephenitis 12y agohuge 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-soltero http://www.heavybit.com/library/video/2013-05-21-javier-solt...
- walterbell 12y agoInformative interview, thanks!
- ams6110 12y agoWell 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 12y agoRealize 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.