Dropbox acquiring Mailbox owner
16 Mar 2013
Dropbox Inc today said it was acquiring owner of Mailbox mobile app, as it makes its first move into products outside its core file-sharing service.
Dropbox chief Drew Houston said, the company thought it could help MailBox reach a much different audience much faster.
The deal would see, the 13 employees of Mailbox owner Orchestra Inc –including alumni of Apple, Stanford University and Ideo join Dropbox. The terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed though.
Houston added Dropbox would keep the Mailbox service running as a stand-alone app, and over time Dropbox would also use Mailbox's technology to enhance Dropbox features, like email attachments. He said the deal came together, following the companies starting to talk about email attachments a few months ago.
Meanwhile, the company today announced on its blog that it was expanding with the acquisition of startup Mailbox, an app which, as of now, was only available to iOS users. Analysts expect it to expand at least to Android in the future, especially following the merger. The app helps users streamline their e-mail experience, cutting out all the clutter that still came with even the best e-mail providers.
With the app users could ''snooze'' e-mails that they did not want to deal with until later, with a simple swipe and a tap. The same was applicable to deleting and archiving. The company has pursued the mission of helping people keep their inboxes empty.
Analysts say given the missions of the two to simplify people's digital experience, it seemed like a natural fit. ''Whether it's your Dropbox or your Mailbox, we want to find ways to simplify your life,'' wrote Dropbox on its blog today.
The two services would as of now, though remain separate. They were not currently planning to integrate the technology – as Dropbox did what it could do to help improve the Mailbox service and spread it to a much larger audience.
However, experts point out, that combining the two services into a single entity could, produce rivals to Gmail which was relied upon by people to offer topnotch service.
