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Microsoft Acquires Calendar App Sunrise for North of $100M
- sz4kerto 12y agoWe can expect something similar to what happened to Acompli: rebranding first, quick release then a probable tighter integration with MS products. It's incredible though that a calendar app is worth >$100M.
- bigdubs 12y agoIt's not the app itself as much as the users of said app.
- ryanburk 12y agoI would say it is probably both. calendaring tech is actually much harder than most people believe. both for usable design and efficient implementation. I say that having worked on the outlook.com/hotmail team a few years ago. and interestingly this is the second calendaring acquisition microsoft has done, having bought jump.com back in 1999.
- codycowan 12y agousers, plus relationships with the various services they had integrated into the app (eventbrite, foursquare, evernote, song kick, asana, todoist.....). 100 million is a lot, but sunrise was a well thought out, well executed product
- mvid 12y agoA calendar skin.
- threeseed 12y agoIt is a lot of money. But then again given this will likely be central to the Exchange/Outlook products it is a bargain. Microsoft desperately needs to hold onto the enterprise given that they are getting beaten a bit in the consumer space.
- bsder 12y agoThey're also getting beaten in the enterprise space. Most non-tech workers want everything through their phone. Microsoft had almost no presence there until the last year. To be fair, the bigger obstacle, to me, is I don't want Google or Microsoft to have access to my data--ever. Especially since they are almost always going to be one of the buyers of a tech company I'm involved with, I don't want them being able to see exactly what I do, how I do it, and what my marketing and sales are.
- rednukleus 12y ago> They're also getting beaten in the enterprise space. Most non-tech workers want everything through their phone. No they don't. Most enterprise workers spend all day in front of a desktop Windows PC.
- higherpurpose 12y agoHopefully without all the security blunders of that: https://blog.winkelmeyer.com/2015/01/warning-microsofts-outlook-app-for-ios-breaks-your-company-security/ https://blog.winkelmeyer.com/2015/01/warning-microsofts-outl...
- slykat 12y agoAnyone concerned they will pull gCal support to drive customers towards MSFT products?
- mvid 12y agoGCal support is the who point of the product, no?
- codycowan 12y agoGiven what they did with Accompli, not at all
- Touche 12y agoIsn't Google trying to do that when they kill CalDav support?
- notatoad 12y agoI think sunrise (and just about every other app that integrates google calendar) uses the Calendar API, not CalDav.
- xasos 12y agoIf they don't, definitely will be switching off. I love that it integrates with my FB events and various google calendars.
- dpark 12y agoHow would that possibly work? Removing Google Calendar support wouldn't drive anyone toward Microsoft. It would just drive them away from Sunrise. People don't choose their Calendar provider based on Sunrise support. They choose their Calendar provider first and might use Sunrise if it supports their Calendar and they like it.
- way66 12y agohey – pierre from sunrise here i agree – we will continue to support Google Calendar
- vassvdm 12y agoCongrats Pierre, Jeremy and team!
- eriksie 12y agoBest calendar app for android.
- cheriot 12y agoDoes anyone know what's different/interesting about their calendar? The company home page and app store pages don't bother with a product overview.
- tdkl 12y agoIntegration with various services like Trello, Todoist, Evernote, Asana etc. in one calendar. I hope this acquisition means we'll finally see Exchange support on the web.
- ecspike 12y agoIt's a nice interface to deal with multiple calendars from different sources (like 2 different Gmail accounts). That wasn't as easy to do with the regular GCal. It's quite a bit faster than GCal on the desktop. Sunrise's Android app is comparable to the GCal app on Android 5.0.
- mcmancini 12y agoAs with Acompli, Sunrise looks nice and has some nice features, but I can't get over the privacy/security problems. I'm interested to see how Microsoft can improve things.
- richardlblair 12y ago> privacy/security problems It's a calendar app. This stuff already syncs like crazy as it is. I would never consider a calendar secure, and would never put confidential information in it.
- qq66 12y agoA calendar can't be useful without information on who you're meeting and where. For some people, that is highly confidential information.
- richardlblair 12y agoSounds like paper and pen is good for you. :)
- mcmancini 12y agoThat's an idiotic response. Think of, for example, medical offices: patient names are PHI. Assuming Microsoft does with Sunrise that it did with Acompli, I could easily see a small medical office thinking, "hey, this calendar is really cool and it's from Microsoft, so it's okay to use". Should they have read the FAQ and seen that it's not HIPAA compliant? Of course. I can also see easily how Microsoft's reputation in business could lead to the assumption that their new acquisitions are business-grade, in spite of their consumer origins. To bring it around to my original point, I'm interested to see how Microsoft can improve these apps to the point where they meet the expectations for Microsoft's business products.
- richardlblair 12y ago
- hobonumber1 12y agoI use Sunrise and I hope they dont shut this app down, but I'm pretty sure they will.
- r3bl 12y agoDude, read the article: > We’ve heard Microsoft will keep the Sunrise apps alive as stand-alone products, while using some of the startup’s technology for its own future products.
- Cowicide 12y agoWhat people hear MS will do and what MS says it will do doesn't really mean too much to me. It's the actions that count. I remember when lots of people told me how great it was going to be when MS bought Virtual PC for Mac (from Connectix) back in the day... After MS touched the code, it was the first (and only) app to ever give my Mac a kernel panic. Then, it got even "greater" when MS discontinued Virtual PC for Mac entirely. MS bought it and killed a great app for Mac. Will Sunrise avoid getting borged and ruined by MS? I hope not, but I'm not counting on it, either.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago>> "back in the day..." Times change. Look at some of their recent moves. It would be unusual for them to shut this down entirely. Probably a rebrand and then continued growth is what'll happen.
- Cowicide 12y ago> It would be unusual for them to shut this down entirely. Right, but what they have done is shut down development on certain platforms. For example, they'll continue to develop Sunrise for Windows Phone, Windows OS but not for Android and/or make it unusable on Android, Mac, iOS, etc. by degrading the code. They have a solid history of doing this. There's also a solid history of people telling me not to worry about it and being proven wrong over time. Again, color me skeptical.
- Raphael 12y agoI would have made a calendar app if I had known it would be worth that much. Edit: It features the JQueryUI date picker. Funny how such value can come from free software.
- trustfundbaby 12y agoI guess the lesson is to build the things that interest you whether an acquisition is coming your way or not. I work at a big company that acquires a lot smaller companies (much smaller deals though) and all the guys we pick up, were just trying to scratch their own itch, and got an acquisition for executing and filling a key hole in our business. You really just never know.
- nilkn 12y agoWhile I'll always be amazed to see apps like this selling for such huge sums of money, I have to say Microsoft has good taste in apps. First Accompli, now Sunrise. They're basically going down the list of my favorite third-party Android apps.
- jbigelow76 12y agoQueue up the chorus of rumors (which are starting to seem non-rumorish lately) of Microsoft eventually enabling Android apps on Windows Phone (and listen for the wailing and gnashing of teeth of loyal .NET Xaml WP devs everywhere).
- tdicola 12y agoWow what drives up the valuation that much, is it a big userbase, lots of investors to pay back, or something else?
- georgespencer 12y ago> drives up the valuation from what to what?
- tdicola 12y agoTo put it another way, why is a calendar application worth $100 million?
- georgespencer 12y agoThat is a much better way of phrasing the question. It's almost certainly because of some combination of the following factors: 1. Widespread usage, 2. Interesting, novel, or useful technology, 3. Strategic importance to the acquirer. It's a bit like asking why the transfer of a soccer player costs $100,000,000. It's because someone is willing to pay it.
- misiti3780 12y agodid sunrise have wide-spread usage though - i do not know anyone that uses it
- georgespencer 12y agoThey attracted 250,000 users in 7 months after launch[1], and that was iPhone only. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/03/sunrise-2-0-brings-icloud-calendar-support-to-its-250000-users/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/03/sunrise-2-0-brings-icloud-c...
- richardlblair 12y agoIt's going to be user base. Microsoft needs users, and so you look at what the users are worth to you and offer that number.
- justin 12y agoCongrats to the Sunrise team! They built the calendar app I always wanted Kiko to be. Pretty cool to see startups succeed in this space.
- loceng 12y agoWhat's Kiko? Not sarcasm.
- justin 12y agohttp://techcrunch.com/2005/09/01/kiko-ajax-calendar/ http://techcrunch.com/2005/09/01/kiko-ajax-calendar/
- sakunthala 12y agoThe guy you're responding to is Justin of twitch.tv. He was in the original YC batch making a calandar known as Kiko
- JacobAldridge 12y agoMy immediate thought was Kiko - I think you guys were the first YC startup that I was actively rooting for, and I still use you as a case study in my presentation on 'Valuation model paradigm shifts'. And yes, so glad you've had the deserved subsequent successes. It would hurt had you given up, and saw this happen while sitting in a dead-end job somewhere.
- xe4l 12y agoThis acquisition likely had a bit to do with the access sunrise has to so many non-microsoft calendar accounts.
- aresant 12y agoVery interesting. A key feature of Sunrise is ""Users can access their calendars from Google, iCloud, and Microsoft Exchange, as well as connecting to a wide range of other third-party apps. " Microsoft clearly understands that data-portability is becoming a major feature / factor in purchasing decisions. Google, on the other hand, keeps trimming portability - particularly with MSFT. In august, for instance, they killed Google Calendar Sync which made for simplified syncing with Outlook Calendar. (1) If portability is what's driving this acquisition and strategy I am excited to see what's coming next. (1) https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/6054804?hl=en https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/6054804?hl=en
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- qeorge 12y agoI'm an Exchange user with a Nexus 4, and the most recent Android update has really made my life tough. First, they removed the normal email app, forcing me to use Gmail. I really dislike the Gmail app. Next, they removed the normal calendar app, and replaced it with Google Calendar. I preferred the old one, and I don't use Google Calendar, I use Exchange. And of course, I lost about 80% of my contacts (also stored on my Exchange account). I've since switched to Nine[1] and turned off Sync on my exchange account (via Android settings), and that's fixed a lot of my problems. I can't recommend Nine enough. Its frustrating. I liked the old "vanilla" Android. I just want an OS that stays the way I configured it, instead of changing its interface and removing applications at random. Anyone else have this experience? What's the option? Cyanogen? I just want a phone that works; I don't want to spend my whole life on this. [1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ninefolders.hd3 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ninefolder...
- fossuser 12y agoI had and used the Nexus One, S and Galaxy Nexus before moving to the iPhone 5 (since it finally had LTE and turn by turn nav). I was tired of shitty hardware design and bad battery life. If you're looking for a pretty controlled vanilla experience where you don't have to do everything the iPhone works pretty well and they're basically the same in terms of features.
- desireco42 12y agoWhile congrats and good for them, it seems that some companies have money to burn.
- frio 12y agoI'm not surprised. The calendar in the new iOS Outlook app is almost 1:1 with Sunrise's UX.
- dmix 12y agoOne reason why: to integrate with Cortana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Cortana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Cortana
- r3bl 12y agoHow exactly do you think that they will incorporate Sunrise with Cortana and why is it any different from what they can do now with Cortana and Exchange calendar?
- bmoresbest55 12y agoI just started using this app. I hope that they don't shutdown the service and make it Microsoft only. Keep with the way Skype is going. Fingers crossed.
- gtirloni 12y agoJust noticed they require read and write access to public and private repositories for GitHub integration. Is it really necessary?
- hkailahi 12y agoI was pretty sketched by this when I was looking at it over the summer. I'm also curious on their reasoning. Does anyone on here use the Github integration? What do you get out of it?
- way66 12y agohello - pierre from sunrise here we wish we could use a better scope just for milestones in github but unfortunately in order to have milestones and issues in Github API we need to ask for the private repo. https://developer.github.com/v3/oauth/#scopes https://developer.github.com/v3/oauth/#scopes feel free to ask Github about that too :)
- walterbell 12y agoWe need support for CalDav open-source servers, e.g. owncloud, zimbra. Nov 2014 status was "not yet": https://twitter.com/mathur_anurag/status/434729199144689665 https://twitter.com/mathur_anurag/status/434729199144689665
- amirmc 12y agoWe need to make it trivial for anyone to run their own core infrastructure (mail, contacts and calendar). I'm working towards this using unikernels - http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-nymote/ http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-nymote/
- walterbell 12y agoIs the vision that these would be run at home and/or in the public cloud? Home offers more legal protection, but NAT hole punching requires a public rendezvous server. What would be the process of porting the services in ownCloud to Nymote/Mirage, do they need to be rewritten in ocaml?
- harisamin 12y agoMet one of the founders at a google business growth event. Really well spoken and nice guy. Good for them. Happy for the team :)
- tw04 12y agoI think this was the wrong purchase. Sunrise has no ability to dial conference calls from the calendar, the #1 feature for business users. And based on their response to my RFE, they have no plans of implementing it. I don't understand why they didn't go for tempo calendar. Sunrise looks nice, but the feature set is severely lacking compared to its competitors. Oh internet warriors, I'd love to hear why my opinion is "wrong" rather than trying to bury a legitimate comment that applies directly to the discussion at hand.
- fpgeek 12y agoTheir development roadmap could easily change after the acquisition. More importantly, Microsoft already has plenty of people who have a lot of experience adding enterprise features to products. It makes far more sense for them to buy the calendar company that is best at the things they don't have, rather than the one that has more of the features they can straightforwardly add.
- habosa 12y agoI see some comments like 'how can a calendar app be worth $100M?' but I'd suspect those people have never used Sunrise. When you first download Sunrise you think 'wow, I can actually enjoy my calendar app!'. It's beautiful, fast, works on every platform and with every calendar provider. Then you integrate it with all of your other services and you see how calendar can rival email as the center of your digital life. If you think about it, we should be checking our calendars to find out what we need to do, not our email. Congrats to Joey (shoutout to HackNY!) and the rest of the team. This is a great reward for building a great app in an essential category.
- ranman 12y agoMega congrats to Joey who did a ton of work. I hope he decides to stay in NYC.
- SeanKilleen 12y agoOne of my most indispensable apps on iOS. I use it multiple times per day. I hope the excellent integration remains. My guess is that Sunrise will stay on its own or become the next version of Outlook's calendar on iOS (which is fine by me as long as it remains free and usable with my Google Calendar as well.) Congratulations to the team!
- yaeger 12y agoDo they still do this? : >Upon first launch, Sunrise invites you to create an account, then asks you to add a calendar. The first option, “iCloud Calendar”, brings you to a screen where the Sunrise app itself, in its native interface and code, solicits your Apple ID (iCloud) email address and password. […] Cause that doesn't sound to appealing... I am already on edge about "logging in with facebook" on 3rd party sites even though that login widget comes directly from facebook and not the site itself. But to flat out make your own textboxes where you ask the user to enter their AppleID and password? That's just wrong.
- danbee 12y agoI have a feeling this is the only way they can do it with iCloud. All other services take you to a service specific authorisation page.
- gshutler 12y agoAs danbee said, it's the only way to do it. You should be able to set up an app-specific password via Apple's site first and provide that instead.
- sergiotapia 12y agoTried to use it, but god damn! "Sunrise Calendar will receive the following info: your public profile, friend list, email address, birthday, work history, education history, events, groups and current city and your friends' birthdays, work histories and education histories." Yeah, not gonna happen.
- ForFreedom 12y agoMSFT should integrate sunrise into Outlook(Accompli) and provide it as a stand alone.