Microsoft officially confirmed today that it has acquired Wunderlist, one of the most popular task management services used across iOS, Android, and Windows.
Wunderlist is the second high-profile software purchase Microsoft has made this year; earlier in June, the Redmond company acquired Sunrise, a popular calendaring service.
In an official announcement via Microsoft’s blog, Eran Megiddo said that “The addition of Wunderlist to the Microsoft product portfolio fits squarely with our ambition to reinvent productivity for a mobile-first, cloud-first world.”
It is likely that, as with Sunrise, Microsoft will continue to allow Wunderlist to operative relatively independently and will more deeply incorporate the service into its own Office software suite at some point in the future.
Previously, Microsoft has relied on their digital assistant Cortana or Outlook email client to facilitate task tracking and has not used a standalone app as is the case with Apple’s iCloud Reminders or Google’s Keep or Now services. It is likely that at some point Wunderlist might become – in one form or another – Microsoft’s solution to task management.
Both Microsoft’s recent purchases – Sunrise and Wunderlist – operate in the same cloud-connected manner that Microsoft has heavily pushed with the latest version of its Office Suite. In the official blog post, Megiddo continued to state that “(The acquisition of Wunderlist) further demonstrates Microsoft‘s commitment to delivering market leading mobile apps across the platforms and devices our customers use “” for mail, calendaring, messaging, notes and now tasks.”
While both Sunrise and Wunderlist will continue to function on both iOS and Android (perhaps, ultimately with a different name) both apps might represent new additions in next year’s Office suite.
The official acquisition price has not been disclosed, yet is speculated to approximate a value between $100-200 million US dollars – a similar figure compared to the $100 million USD the firm spent to acquire Sunrise.
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