Microsoft buys Wunderlist to catch competitors in mobile

By Barry Eitel

SAN FRANCISCO 

Microsoft announced Tuesday that it acquired the makers of the admired to-do list app Wunderlist, a program that the company is planning to roll into its mobile offerings.

“The addition of Wunderlist to the Microsoft product portfolio fits squarely with our ambition to reinvent productivity for a mobile-first, cloud-first world,” wrote Eran Megiddo, general manager of Microsoft’s productivity app OneNote, in a blog post acknowledging the purchase.

Megiddo points out how the recent deal points to a larger strategy of dominating the productivity aspect of mobile devices much like Microsoft has defined productivity for generations of personal computers.

“Building on momentum for Microsoft Office, OneNote and Skype for Business, as well as the recent Sunrise and Acompli acquisitions,” the Wunderlist acquisition “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,” he added.

Wunderlist, built by German software firm 6Wunderkinder and funded by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Sequoia Capital, currently boasts more than 13 million users who have created over a billion to-do lists.

The Wall Street Journal claims that Microsoft bought 6Wunderkinder for between $100 million and $200 million.

Microsoft has been struggling to catch up with competitors like Apple and Google in the mobile marketplace. The company recently made the mobile version of its Microsoft Office productivity suite free for not just Windows Phone users, but also on devices running on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android mobile operating systems.

Alongside its repackaging of Office, Microsoft has bought a series of popular mobile apps, including video-chatting service Skype in 2011 and email app developers Accompli last year under current CEO Satya Nadella, who has promised a Microsoft primed to compete in the mobile field.

“Over the next few months as Wunderlist becomes a part of the Microsoft family, we’ll introduce a host of new features, continue growing the ecosystem of partner integrations and progress in delivering Wunderlist to billions of people,” 6Wunderkinder CEO Christian Reber wrote in a blog post for the company Tuesday.