Microsoft has just acquired the popular calendar app Sunrise. TechCrunch, which first learned of the deal, has pegged the value of the transaction at a cool $100 million.
Sunrise has an awesome iPhone and iPad app in the App Store. It's also available for the Mac, across other mobile platforms and in the form of a responsive, lightweight application which runs smoothly in a web browser.
Dropbox has snapped up CloudOn, a cloud-based Microsoft Office document editing application. The company said in a blog post announcing the deal that its more than 30 employees will be joining the Dropbox team and confirmed shutting down the service on March 15, 2015.
The free CloudOn iOS app, which launched in 2012, has been updated today with a note confirming the service will be no longer accepting new users as a result of the deal.
According to The Guardian newspaper Wednesday, Apple has acquired British media analytics firm Semetric ahead of Beats Music relaunch.
Semetric's Musicmetric analytics tool, launched in 2008, is used by record labels to track digital sales, streams and social networking statistics for artists.
It even tracks BitTorrent downloads. The service could become part of Beats Music streaming service relaunch later this year, speculates the report.
Samsung has recently approached BlackBerry with an acquisition offer, reports Reuters. Citing a person familiar with the matter, the outlet says that the Korean electronics giant offered as much as $7.5 billion to buy the struggling handset-maker.
Facebook is purchasing the San Diego, California-based web video startup QuickFire Networks for an undisclosed amount. The company announced the acquisition on its website today, saying that "key members" of its team will be joining the social networking giant as it "winds down operations."
QuickFire is known for its propriety software tech that significantly reduces the bandwidth needed to view video online without degrading its quality. The startup will help Facebook build an infrastructure capable of supporting the massive influx of video consumption it's currently experiencing.
Confirming an inadvertent leak last month, Windows and Office maker Microsoft on Monday said it's buying Acompli for more than $200 million. For those who haven't heard about Acompli, it's an efficient email app for iOS and Android that features an integrated calendar.
Framed as “part of our company-wide effort to help people accomplish more with their mobile devices,” the deal will bring San Francisco-based Acompli team together with work currently in progress by the Outlook team.
Microsoft's stated goal is to“ deliver fantastic cross-platform apps that support the variety of email services” people use today to help them accomplish more and Acompli seems to fit the bill nicely.
“It will expedite our work to deliver the full power of Office to mobile devices,” said the software giant.
Google has acquired RelativeWave, the team responsible for the popular iOS app prototyping software Form. Form is available for Mac and iOS, and allows designers and developers to create rich interactive app prototypes and run them on their iPhone or iPad.
In a note on its website today, RelativeWave announced that they would be joining Google to continue their work on the software, saying they "want to get Form in the hands of as many people as possible, and this is [their] first step in accomplishing that goal."
AT&T on Friday announced that it is set to acquire Mexican carrier Iusacell for a total of $2.5 billion, including debt. The two companies have entered into an agreement, which will occur once investor group Grupo Salinas completes its own ongoing acquisition of Iusacell.
The plan, AT&T says, is to expand Iusacell coverage beyond its already near-9 million subscriber base in Mexico. The carrier sees a large potential for growth in the country thanks to recent competitive-friendly changes made to wireless regulations by President Peña Nieto.
Apple has acquired cloud networking startup Union Bay Networks, according to The Seattle Times. The company focused on "enabling the next generation of networking for cloud computing and software defined datacenters," and seven out of nine of its former employees are said to have been hired by the Cupertino firm.
Of course, Apple hasn't officially commented on the acquisition, but it seemingly confirmed the purchase earlier today by providing The Seattle Times its boiler plate public relations response of "Apple sometimes buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans."
Apple may have acquired the magazine platform Prss (pronounced ‘press’) for an undisclosed amount, according to an unverified report filed Tuesday by Dutch publication iCulture.nl [Google Translate] and corroborated by TechCrunch.
Citing a source knowledgeable with the situation, the article claims that several Prss employees are now working for Apple. An Apple spokesperson responded with the usual boilerplate message.
“Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” the company representative told TechCrunch.
Prss is a browser-based collaborative tool that allows anyone to create and publish their own magazine on Apple’s Newsstand, no programming skills required whatsoever.
Following weeks of speculation, software giant Microsoft on Monday officially confirmed it's spending a cool $2.5 billion to buy Mojang, a company behind the highly successful Minecraft video game which tasks players with building constructions out of textured cubes in a 3D procedurally generated world.
The Stockholm-based firm is to become part of Microsoft Studios, the Windows maker has confirmed.
The deal, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory review, will enable “richer and faster worlds, more powerful development tools and more opportunities to connect” across the Minecraft community as the game is set to take advantage of Microsoft’s cloud and mobile technologies.
Before raising its latest $100 million in funding, Square was in talks with Apple regarding a possible acquisition, reports TechCrunch this afternoon. The outlet says that the two companies held discussions briefly, but the conversation quickly ended when their final numbers didn't match up.
Apparently Apple was willing to pay around $3 billion for the mobile payments company, about 30% over its value. TechCrunch even claims that the Cupertino firm showed Square hardware it was working on that would compete directly with its point-of-sale tools, but the company declined.