Google on Wednesday acquired ReMail, a company founded by a former Google employee and Gmail engineer and which specializes in a mobile e-mail search application for Apple's iPhone.
Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. ReMail's $4.99 application allows users to download all their e-mail to the iPhone and utilize the application's full-text e-mail search capability.
As expected, ReMail was promptly removed from Apple's App Store, and it's likely Google will shut down the application altogether and integrate the technology into its own mobile platform, Android. The acquisition and subsequent removal of ReMail from the App Store is the latest shot in a growing feud between Google and Apple in the smartphone market.
ReMail was founded in 2008 by ex-Google engineer Gabor Cselle, who worked on Gmail features after joining Google as an intern in 2004. On the ReMail blog, Cselle wrote he was "thrilled" about the acquisition and excited to be returning to Google.
"[R]eMail's goal was [to] re-imagine mobile email, and I'm proud we have built a product that so many users find useful," Cselle wrote. "Still, I feel like we've only seen the beginning of what's possible. Google is the best place in the world to improve the status quo on how people communicate and share information."
Cselle also wrote that ReMail's application will still work for current owners, even though the iPhone product will be discontinued and no longer available via the App Store. Cselle also wrote that ReMail will continue to provide support for the application until the end of March.
