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Surprise! Essential just acquired... CloudMagic, maker of the Newton email app?

This is probably the most unexpected acquisition of the year.
By
December 7, 2018
TL;DR
  • Essential completed an acquisition of CloudMagic this morning for an undisclosed sum.
  • CloudMagic made the popular Newton email app, which shut down earlier this year.
  • It is not quite clear why Essential would buy a company like CloudMagic.

Companies buy other companies all the time. Some of those acquisitions make huge headlines (think AT&T buying Time Warner) while others fly under the radar. However, most acquisitions make sense as soon as you hear about them.

That might not be the case with today’s major acquisition, via TechCrunch: Andy Rubin’s Essential acquired CloudMagic, maker of the former email app Newton.

Under normal circumstances, a smartphone company buying a company focused on cloud integration wouldn’t be all too surprising. However, Essential has made major headlines over the past few months for all the wrong reasons, with talks of Rubin selling the company, then laying off a third of its staff, and then getting caught up in a huge sexual harassment scandal which resulted in thousands of Google employees walking off the job.

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Meanwhile, CloudMagic shuttered its popular Newton email app earlier this year, after years of bad decisions and mismanagement. Now, its website looks like it was made in MS-DOS.

What would a smartphone company in a tailspin want with a company whose only real product was a just-shuttered email app?

An Essential spokesperson gave this cryptic and open-ended statement to TechCrunch: “We are always on the lookout for companies with great technology and talent to help accelerate our product roadmap.”

Sure. OK. Take that as you will.

What do you think? What is this acquisition all about? Let us know your theories in the comments.

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