In what just might be very good news for the multitudes in line for the Mailbox iPhone app, Dropbox has announced it has acquired the developers.
Mailbox, an iPhone ‘Gmail improvement – management’ app released by Orchestra Inc. in February, is still available only on a reservation basis, with ‘millions’ of people in line. In the meanwhile, Dropbox, the popular cloud storage service, announced yesterday it had acquired Mailbox’s developers. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the Mailbox service offering will be broadened, with new features, including support for more devices and email providers well as new features.
The app was a hit from launch, and has since received rave reviews. Mailbox is a Gmail management tool that revamps the inbox to make it “light, fast, and mobile-friendly.” Users can use the interface to swipe messages, scan conversations, snooze emails, an even get push notifications.
The Mailbox app team is currently 14-strong, and will be integrated into the Dropbox team. Talking about the future of the app, the Mailbox team said they’ve decided to “join forces with Dropbox and build it together.”
Dropbox co-founders, Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, explained their reasoning behind the purchase, in a blog post:
“Like many of you, when we discovered Mailbox we fell in love—it was simple, delightful, and beautifully engineered. Many have promised to help us with our overflowing inboxes, but the Mailbox team actually delivered… We all quickly realized that together we could save millions of people a lot of pain… Dropbox doesn’t replace your folders or your hard drive: it makes them better. The same is true with Mailbox. It doesn’t replace your email: it makes it better… We’re all looking forward to making Mailbox even better and getting it into as many people’s hands as possible. There’s so much to do and we’re excited to get started!”
The financial terms of the Mailbox-acquisition were not disclosed by either company, however, a Techcrunch article claims that Dropbox paid roughly $100 million in cash and stocks.
Source: PCMag