Sparrow bought by Google

The French company SARL Sparrow comes to redeem by Google. Within a few months, the seedling was noted for hits innovative mail client. The application was available on Mac and iPhone, the editor was working on a version of Android and iPad and had moved into premises in Paris.

Sparrow had been founded by Viet Dinh Hoa, a former Apple iCal and iSync, and then spent at Amazon then the big creative agency Visuamobile mobile applications. A society also worked Dominique Leca, the other cofounder. A team that has grown with Jean-Marc Denis for the creation of the interface, and later developers Bégué John the Baptist (also former Visuamobile) and Louis Romero, who was seven months intern at Apple in the team UIKit.

Unsurprisingly, this messes acquisition plans of the publisher. Sparrow, whether for Mac or iOS, will no longer be updated, except to correct major bugs or security flaws. There is no question of adding new features.

By integrating the Gmail team, the publisher hopes to achieve even faster to accomplish its purposes and their vision of the mall in general. Vision that will be highly integrated with the Google tool.

The mail program industry is decidedly open upheaval. In early July, the Mozilla Foundation announced that it would considerably slow down the pace of development of Thunderbird.

It will be recalled that Sparrow has several advisors and reputable investors, developer Loren Brichter whose (Tweetie / Twitter) or David Morin (creator of the social network Path). Among the financial supporters of the first hour, there are some especially Niel.

Free boss had invested € 200 000 Sparrow in late 2010 through the seed fund Kima Ventures, co-founded with Jeremie Berrebi. The amount of the transaction with Google has not been specified, but the investment was wise.

[Update]: According to the confidences obtained by The Verge, the acquisition would be less than $ 25 million (20.5 million) and no other candidate in front of Google. The latter had long recognized the competence of this team to create an e-mail application to the operation really simple and clean user interface. A team that would eventually leave Paris and Mountain View, California.

For Google, The Verge continues, it would instill in Gmail and its applications some of the precepts of Sparrow. Google finally not exclude customers other than those already existing on iOS and Android.