Unified Inbox, a cloud-based social conversation and collaboration platform, has entered a definitive agreement to acquire HelloInbox, an iOS app that can be used to send and receive messages both from email accounts and social networks.
Unified Inbox has bought the company for an undisclosed sum, and says it will leverage the team’s expertise in app development to improve the user experience on mobile.
Unified Inbox is a single, cloud-based platform that keeps all of your conversations, tasks and contact information in one place. Part of this is the aforementioned unified inbox, which can be used to keep track of multiple email, Facebook and Twitter accounts.
There’s also a synchronized address book, which can be shared across a team using Unified Inbox so that everyone has up-to-date contact information. These profiles, including display images, show up next to the messages in your inbox and can also be used to talk to them directly.
The chat functionality has been built into Unified Inbox though to help team members interact with one another. As teams increasingly work remotely, communication is key and can be crucial for avoiding duplication of work or missed tasks.
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There’s also the usual task management tools, such as a calendar for setting deadlines and a messaging system that can be used to assign projects to other team members.
Unified Inbox is currently in beta, with a large number of consumers and businesses using it across both desktop and mobile platforms. Headquartered in New Zealand, the company says it expects to launch publicly later this year – which should give the HelloInbox team time to make a mark on the company’s smartphone offerings.
The acquisition is a sensible one, given that HelloInbox offered a very similar concept on the iPhone. A unified inbox is split into two tabs – messages and updates – the first of which includes emails, Twitter DMs, Facebook messages and notifications from the Dutch social networking site Hyves. The app also supports multiple email accounts from Gmail, Google Apps, Hotmail and Outlook, among others.
“Talking to Unified Inbox over a period of time we realized that our mobile apps combined with the strength of the Unified Inbox platform could deliver a world-class product,” Dirk de Kok, co-founder and CEO of HelloInbox said. “We look forward to contributing our mobile expertise in ways that delight consumers and business users alike.”
Image Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images
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