Microsoft Acquires App Company Wunderlist

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, is translating some of the‘ to do’ tasks he had promised while he took charge as CEO of the company. In an attempt to transition the company to the new normal tech demands the company is going all out in expanding its mobile business competencies and in the bargain it is aggressively picking up startups and innovative players in this space and the latest one is Wunderlist.

Microsoft in a blog post has announced that it has acquired '6Wunderkinder' - the maker of the ‘to do’ list app- Wunderlist.

While the actual deal size is not yet known, but is believed to be in the neighbourhood of $100 mn.

Reflecting on the buy,  Eran Megiddo - General Manager, OneNote said in a blog post that: “The addition of Wunderlist to the Microsoft product portfolio fits squarely with our ambition to reinvent productivity for a mobile-first, cloud-first world. Building on momentum for Microsoft Office, OneNote and Skype for Business, as well as the recent Sunrise and Acompli acquisitions, it further demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to delivering market leading mobile apps across the platforms and devices our customers use – for mail, calendaring, messaging, notes and now tasks.”

“If you are one of Wunderlist’s 13 million+ customers who have created more than one billion to-dos to get stuff done in smarter, more intuitive ways, you understand why, in 2014, The Verge ranked Wunderlist as the best to-do list app. If you haven’t tried Wunderlist yet, you have a great opportunity to make the most of your time with its brilliant design and ease of use,” added Magiddo.

Microsoft in the recent times is going all out expanding its mobile capabilities as well as deepening its developer base. While, Microsoft missed the first wave of mobility a decade ago with too much PC OS polarisation had given significant headroom for Apple and Google to dominate the mobility market .  But post the Nokia acquisition ,Microsoft is kind of putting a mobile first strategy.

Clearly Microsoft  by these small acquisitions is bridging the gaps in its mobility business and trying to leverage its PC based productivity expertise to a mobile platform. This offers big opportunity for Microsoft, as it still has Enterprise vs Consumer differentiation and moreover Microsoft is making all these apps mostly free for download.

With BlackBery going down the bend, Microsoft's aggressive moves on mobility play is one to watch  out for closely. The big question  is:  Can it break the Apple and Google bi-polarity?