Microsoft is about to purchase SwiftKey for around $250 million, with the acquisition plan happening within the first week of February.
SwiftKey has been one of the most popular keyboard apps on both iOS and Android, Android Police reported. It launched on Android in 2010 and came to iOS in 2014. Around that time, SwiftKey changed its game from selling its app to offering in-app payments for new keyboard themes. It appears that the company may not have been as financially successful as it hoped, which would make some sense given the spread of its main feature, a swipeable keyboard, as a default option on many phones.
The acquisition would be an interesting buy for Microsoft, which has been on a buying spree lately. SwiftKey brings a lot to the table because it is a wildly popular replacement for both the stock iOS and Android keyboards, known for the artificial intelligence that recommends the next word users will type.
The AI technology in SwiftKey's predictive engine is certainly interesting, as evidenced by the impressive performance of the alpha app it released a few months ago. It seems likely Microsoft will keep offering the app on Android with such a huge user base.
While it may seem strange for Microsoft to buy a keyboard app when it already has a perfectly good one, but the acquisition appears focusing on the interest in SwiftKey's research into artificial intelligence. SwiftKey recently launched an Android keyboard that uses a neural network instead of its standard algorithms when predicting words.
SwitftKey will be part of talented developers and popular apps acquired by Microsoft and part of its shift to a strategy of providing services across devices and platforms, according to The Verge. Owning SwiftKey would give it another strong name across both platforms, specifically on Android, where Microsoft has shown a lot of interest in developing custom experiences. According to unnamed sources close to SwiftKey, many of the company's 150 employees are expected to join Microsoft Research following the acquisition.
Over the past year, Microsoft has been gobbling up popular apps, such as Wunderlist and Sunrise Calendar, all to help bolster its mobile offerings.