Microsoft Acquires Email App Acompli

Microsoft on Monday announced it has acquired 18 month-old email app Acompli.

Redmond said the acquisition is part of its "effort to help people accomplish more with their mobile devices," and builds on its move to offer its popular Office suite on the iPhone and iPad. Microsoft did not reveal financial details of the acquisition, but Re/code reported that Redmond paid more than $200 million for the app.

"In a world where more than half of email messages are first read on a mobile device, it's essential to give people fantastic email experiences wherever they go," Rajesh Jha, corporate vice president for Outlook and Office 365, wrote in a blog post Monday. "The Acompli team is passionate about this quest."

Available for iOS and Android, the Acompli app lets you do things like schedule meetings and work with attachments right from your inbox. It connects to all email services, offering a single place where you can manage your email.

As part of the acquisition, the Acompli team will join Microsoft's Outlook group. Microsoft said the acquisition will "expedite" its plans to deliver the full suite of Office features to mobile devices, including Android.

"We're excited about what's possible as we build on the app's success and bring it together with work currently in progress by the Outlook team," Jha wrote. "Our goal is to deliver fantastic cross-platform apps that support the variety of email services people use today and help them accomplish more."

If you currently use Acompli, you don't have to worry about the service going away (for now at least). In a blog post, Acompli CEO Javier Soltero said the current app will continue to work and the team will continue to add new functionality every few weeks.

"Over the next few months, we'll be sharing more about the exciting product plans we have as Acompli becomes a part of Microsoft," he wrote. "We remain committed to the original Acompli vision of making the best mobile email application on any platform and across all services."