Wunderlist Founder Offers To Buy App Back From Microsoft
‘Don’t kill it, rather let me buy it back’, founder of task app Wunderlist pleads with Microsoft
The founder and former CEO of the task based app Wunderlist, Christian Reber, has made a ‘serious offer’ to buy back the app from Microsoft, four years after it purchased it.
Microsoft had acquired 6Wunderkinder, the German start-up behind the popular to-do app Wunderlist, for an undisclosed amount in June 2015, as part of Redmond’s continued push into the mobile productivity sector.
At the time, an insider told the Wall Street Journal that the value of the deal was between $100 million to $200 million.
Wunderlist app
Launched in 2010, Wunderlist had racked up millions of users before it was acquired by Microsoft.
The intention of the app was “to build the most delightful, simple and elegant product to help people manage their daily personal and professional to-dos.”
The thinking behind the acquisition was that Microsoft’s backing and financial resources, the reach of Wunderlist would continue to grow.
But Microsoft has something of a habit of discarding tech it no longer views as strategic, and in April 2017 Redmond replaced Wunderlist with To-Do, an intelligent task-management app to help users manage their day.
Microsoft has said it intends to shut down Wunderlist which was built on Amazon Web Services.
The only reason reportedly Wunderlist is still around is the fact that Microsoft has to rewrite the Microsoft ToDo app to run on its Azure cloud service.
And now former CEO Christian Reber has announced that he would consider buying back the company from Microsoft.
“Still sad @Microsoft wants to shut down @Wunderlist, even though people still love and use it,” tweeted Reber. “I’m serious @satyanadella @marcusash, please let me buy it back. Keep the team and focus on @MicrosoftToDo, and no one will be angry for not shutting down @Wunderlist.”
It remains to be seen whether Satya Nadella is listening, or whether Wunderlist will go the way of Zune, Windows Phone, Windows Mobile and the Microsoft Watch.
