MS buying Acompli - why
It has been recently reported that MS is looking to acquire a company called Acompli.
Acompli is the developer of a mobile email, calendaring and contacts app and backend services for iOS and Android. Think of it as Outlook for mobile that supports Office365, Gmail, Outlook.com, DropBox, OneDrive and more.
http://www.acompli.com
Acompli addresses one of the challenges I've felt about modern mobile devices and that is the separate Mail, Calendar and Contact apps that every Mobile OS has. It's not that seperate apps are necessarily bad, but for the modern corporate user with multiple email accounts, having a more unifying experience is great....
When MS released Office for iPad back in March of this year, one of things that I asked was why no Outlook. For many Corporate users, that is the one app that they actually spend more time in than Word or Excel or Powerpoint - so why not include it ? Especially when Outlook is typically the primary gateway to Office365.
Here we are 9 months later and still no Outlook and this announcement. So it has me thinking.....
Does MS not have the resources or intellectual property to develop Outlook for mobile and have to buy Acompli ? Or do they look at Acompli as a competing platform that they need to acquire ? Or maybe a little of both.
With Satya Nadella Microsoft's new go to market strategy is Mobile First, Cloud First.
On the cloud side, I have to say MS has done a admirable job with Office365 and Azure and has turned them both into $1B+ businesses.
But on the Mobile side they really seem to be struggling. As I have written about many times, Windows Phone is struggling so I can't see MS seeing much real revenue growth from that group and it will take years to re-coup the $8B+ they paid for Nokia.
From a pure academic standpoint looking at market share - Windows Phone is a failure. While is does have competitive market share in a few countries like Australia @ 25%. World-wide its more like 5%. And its not just the devices, but the OS, Apps and Store that are struggling.
So that leaves supporting iOS and Android the two market leaders in the mobile space as an area for new growth. Okay - so MS did release Office for iOS and Android.
But the expectation was to generate Office365 revenue and I'm not sure that has really come to fruition. When MS first released Office for iPad it topped the Apple App Store charts. Checking today MS Word ranked 178th and MS has actually had to give away more in terms of unlimited OneDrive space to try and drive adoption. They also announced integration with DropBox..
Will having Outlook change that ? Maybe. But it seems strange that MS feels they need Acompli to give them that capability.
If MS does not begin executing more quickly and much more effectively in the Mobile space, it will start to have a dramatic impact across the entire MS portfolio. Maybe there's the real reason behind buying Acompli.... they have to....
Acompli is the developer of a mobile email, calendaring and contacts app and backend services for iOS and Android. Think of it as Outlook for mobile that supports Office365, Gmail, Outlook.com, DropBox, OneDrive and more.
http://www.acompli.com
Acompli addresses one of the challenges I've felt about modern mobile devices and that is the separate Mail, Calendar and Contact apps that every Mobile OS has. It's not that seperate apps are necessarily bad, but for the modern corporate user with multiple email accounts, having a more unifying experience is great....
When MS released Office for iPad back in March of this year, one of things that I asked was why no Outlook. For many Corporate users, that is the one app that they actually spend more time in than Word or Excel or Powerpoint - so why not include it ? Especially when Outlook is typically the primary gateway to Office365.
Here we are 9 months later and still no Outlook and this announcement. So it has me thinking.....
Does MS not have the resources or intellectual property to develop Outlook for mobile and have to buy Acompli ? Or do they look at Acompli as a competing platform that they need to acquire ? Or maybe a little of both.
With Satya Nadella Microsoft's new go to market strategy is Mobile First, Cloud First.
On the cloud side, I have to say MS has done a admirable job with Office365 and Azure and has turned them both into $1B+ businesses.
But on the Mobile side they really seem to be struggling. As I have written about many times, Windows Phone is struggling so I can't see MS seeing much real revenue growth from that group and it will take years to re-coup the $8B+ they paid for Nokia.
From a pure academic standpoint looking at market share - Windows Phone is a failure. While is does have competitive market share in a few countries like Australia @ 25%. World-wide its more like 5%. And its not just the devices, but the OS, Apps and Store that are struggling.
But the expectation was to generate Office365 revenue and I'm not sure that has really come to fruition. When MS first released Office for iPad it topped the Apple App Store charts. Checking today MS Word ranked 178th and MS has actually had to give away more in terms of unlimited OneDrive space to try and drive adoption. They also announced integration with DropBox..
Will having Outlook change that ? Maybe. But it seems strange that MS feels they need Acompli to give them that capability.
If MS does not begin executing more quickly and much more effectively in the Mobile space, it will start to have a dramatic impact across the entire MS portfolio. Maybe there's the real reason behind buying Acompli.... they have to....
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