Dropbox Acquires Mobile Email Client Mailbox
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
Cloud storage provider Dropbox has announced they will be acquiring the company behind the mobile email app Mailbox – the company’s first acquisition outside of its core file-sharing service, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
Under the terms of the agreement, the 13 employees of Palo Alto, California-based Orchestra Inc. will join their software’s new company, WSJ reporter Jessica E. Lessin explained. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Following the acquisition, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston confirmed Mailbox – “the email management app everyone’s been drooling over for the past few weeks all over the Internet,” according to VentureBeat – would remain a stand-alone app.
The email client, which was launched in February, “features a number of swipe gestures that allow users to quickly plow through email messages,” said Forbes staff writer Tomio Geron. “The gestures include the ability to quickly archive Gmail messages and save messages to separate folders or to delay the messages to reappear in the inbox at a later time. The app has also become popular because it has had a massive waiting list to get the app.”
The acquisition of the app is part of Dropbox’s recent attempt to expand its business beyond its file storage and sharing service, Geron added. Houston’s company recently rolled out several new features emphasizing the use of photos, documents, and other types of content within the service – including the addition of a new photo album feature. Through such services, the firm hopes to provide subscribers to use and manage their files.
Mailbox is currently available by invitation only, but nonetheless the company reports the app is already delivering more than 60 million emails per day, ZDNet.com’s Rachel King said. However, they were unsure they would be able to handle that level of traffic or demand for the service, and opted to team up with Dropbox rather than try to expand the service on its own.
“This means big things for Dropbox too,” King said. “On the services side, it simply expands what Dropbox can offer to existing and new users in face of growing competition among cloud storage providers. And based on the popularity of Mailbox thus far, it could gain Dropbox some more ground with iOS users in particular. Furthermore, this purchase provides more light on Dropbox’s evolving mobile strategy. The San Francisco-based company didn’t offer many details about how and where the Mailbox unit will fit in, but there is this snippet.”
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2013-03-16 10:16:59
Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112804679/dropbox-buys-mailbox-email-app-031613/
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