Why trust Greenbot
A report from the Financial Times claims that Microsoft has entered into a deal to acquire SwiftKey, known for their popular keyboard, for around $250 million. The Redmond based company plans on announcing its acquisition later this week.
Microsoft has previously acquired startups behind successful apps like Accompli, which was later renamed to Outlook, Sunrise Calendar, and more. Microsoft already has an excellent keyboard, Word Flow, that it is working on bringing to Android and iOS later this year, so it is surprising to see the company go ahead and acquire SwiftKey.
The report claims that despite being incredibly popular on Android and iOS, SwiftKey did not turn out to be as financially successful as the team had hoped for. Beside the keyboard itself, the research into artificial intelligence done by the team at SwiftKey was also a key reason for Microsoft to acquire it.
It is likely that Microsoft will use SwiftKey’s AI technology to not only improve its keyboard, but also use it in Cortana and across its various other services.
All previous acquisitions from Microsoft have been absolutely stellar and SwiftKey is going to be another great addition to this list.
Update: Both Microsoft and SwiftKey have now gone ahead and made the acquisition official. Microsoft also confirmed that it plans on integrating SwiftKey’s technology with Word Flow in Windows.
[Via Financial Times]
