Seeking to re-assert itself as the kingpin of productivity, February 11th saw Microsoft officially confirm its acquisition of mobile calendering startup Sunrise.
The news was first broken by TechCrunch on February 4th, where it was rumoured that Microsoft had allegedly acquired the vendor behind one of the most popular calendering services on the mobile front. A week later, Microsoft has now publicly confirmed that it has spent over US$100 million to acquire Sunrise.
The Redmond firm’s ultimate plans for the popular calendar client are unknown, but this is not the first acquistion Microsoft has made in the productivity market in recent times – in December 2014, the firm acquired and email-client startup Acompli. Subsequently, Microsoft has seen fit to re-brand Acompli applications under the Outlook banner, which saw an iOS and Android client release just last week.
Both acquistions are indicative of not only recent trend set by the Redmond behemoth, but also a new strategy, which sees the firm working hard to re-position itself as the go-to operator for productivity services, with the new intent of opening their Office platform – of which Sunrise could become a part of – across multiple platforms. Outlook, following its recent client release on mobile platforms, was largely received with unanimous praise.
Sunrise’s popularity as a calendering client stems from a famed easy-to-use interface, and a rich compatibility with popular web calendar services, including Microsoft Exchange, Apple’s iCloud Calendar, Google Calendar, and the ability to connect to a wide range of third party services.
Sunrise’s suite of calendar applications extends across mobile and desktop spheres, and is available for free from a litany of app stores – including Google Play, the iOS and Mac App Stores, as well as the Chrome Web Store.
Sunrise was founded in 2012, and subsequently raised $8.2 million USD from multiple investors.
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