Like a penny-pinching extreme couponer, Microsoft has an eye for good deals—especially wonderful productivity apps for iOS and Android. In its latest mobile app bargain, Microsoft is reportedly buying Wunderlist, a well-loved to-do list app, which would basically make Microsoft the unofficial monarch of mobile productivity.
The $100-200 million asking price, if it goes through, will essentially purchase a productivity triumvirate. Earlier this year, Microsoft snatched up Sunrise, arguably one of the best mobile calendars out there after having just released a whole new Outlook client, based on the wonderfully great Acompli app the company pocketed back in December. That’s calendar, email, and now possibly to-do lists—all purchased within the last seven months. We’ve reached out to Microsoft to confirm the purchase and responded saying the company is “not commenting on rumors and speculation.”
Update: Microsoft and 6Wunderkinder have made the marriage official.
Coincidentally (but probably not), Wunderlist and Sunrise announced an app integration two weeks ago, bringing both their services together, allowing to-dos to be added directly from Sunrise. This might be just a taste of the close relationship among these three apps that Microsoft has in mind for the future.
Microsoft seems completely focused on this piecemeal approach to conquering your smartphone. The Office team just polished off a big revamp to its suite of apps for iOS (and most recently Android), and now many smartphone manufacturers are cutting deals with Microsoft to ship apps like Skype, OneNote, OneDrive, Word, and Excel on Samsung, Sony, LG, and a shit-ton of other devices.
So whether you like it or not, Microsoft seems determined to win its way onto your smartphone—or at the very least buy it. [The Wall Street Journal]