A week after the news dropped that Microsoft was acquiring calendar app maker, Sunrise Atelier, the companies have confirmed the acquisition via a YouTube video that has since been made private.
The Sunrise calendar app for mobile and desktop is a user favorite. With this acquisition Microsoft is looking beyond its own developers for ways to make its calendar apps better.
Earlier reports pegged the purchase price at over $100 million, but there’s no official word on what Microsoft paid.
In the year since Satya Nadella became CEO, Microsoft has been working on being more open – including open source – and hopes it can generate the kind of user obsession Apple enjoys.
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During the Windows 10 event, Nadella repeatedly told the audience that he wants Microsoft to be loved. If the company continues to buy up much beloved startups and their apps without messing them up, it might just get that.
Update: Microsoft has posted about the acquisition and that YouTube video is back online.
In the post, corporate vice president of Outlook and Office 365, Rajesh Jha stated, “Today’s acquisition of Sunrise, our recent acquisition of Acompli, and our new touch-optimized universal Office apps for Windows 10 all exemplify Microsoft’s ambition to rethink the productivity category.”
Even the boss got in on the action.
Proud to welcome @sunrise to @Microsoft…to help people make the most of their time in the mobile & cloud first world http://t.co/k8HI5LN15K
— Satya Nadella (@satyanadella) February 11, 2015
For anyone afraid that the app will disappear now that Microsoft owns it, you can lay those fears to rest. Jha says that the app will remain available in its respective app stores and will still be free.
➤ Microsoft acquires Sunrise, creator of an innovative calendar app for mobile devices
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