Google’s Sparrow acquisition: bringing ‘beauty’ to Gmail

Last week Google acquired popular email client Sparrow, and the reactions have been mixed — many users are disappointed that their favourite app won’t be getting new features, while others are simply sad that the Sparrow team won’t get to work on the projects they want to. A number of notable app developers have weighed in as well, and their reactions make it pretty clear that even with a successful app like Sparrow, building a sustainable development business isn’t easy.

“Sparrow did everything right,” wrote David Barnard, founder of App Cubby, the team behind Launch Center Pro. “They built an incredible email app with broad appeal and released it into the hottest software market the world has ever seen. And yet it was a financial flop.” One of the problems, he says, is the current pricing model, where users expect “more and more value from software while paying less and less for it.”

While I congratulate the Sparrow team on moving on to bigger and better projects at Google, one thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth: the fact that the Sparrow team is no longer free to build products for itself. When I last spoke at length with Sparrow founder Dom Leca, he told me about how he left a corporate app-developing world to build something he wanted to use. “To build a better mail,” he’d say. Each day Leca and friend / colleague Dinh Viet Hoa set out to build an email app they’d want to use.

It’s my personal belief that the best apps, or even the best products, come from people who build things for themselves. Steve Jobs, a role model of Leca’s, always believed that if you build a great product, the buyers will come in droves. And they did. Sparrow has made hundreds of thousands of dollars because the team built something they believed was “right,” and something that looked fantastic. The company had just about the entire world waiting in anticipation of its iPad app, which has little chance of seeing the light of day.

Today, Sparrow’s Dom Leca announced that his third party email client company had been purchased by Google, and we just talked to sources familiar with the situation. The talks have been ongoing for a while; Sparrow was well known, and our sources say Google recognized that the five-person-team had a “lot of expertise in how to make mail communication really simple.” While we couldn’t get an exact number, we’re told that Sparrow was acquired for under $25 million, and that there wasn’t a bidding war surrounding the purchase. Our source couldn’t specify a timeline, but the goal is to get the Paris-based Sparrow team in-house on the main Mountain View campus in California.

In an email to users, Dom Leca explained that Sparrow products won’t be receiving new features, and the team will be joining the Gmail team. While some of the work that Sparrow has done on its native iPad app may be seen in future releases from the Gmail team, it’s safe to assume that the app won’t be released in its Sparrow-branded form. Still, the Sparrow iOS and Mac apps will continue to be available from Apple’s App Stores. As far as when we’ll start to see some of the Sparrow DNA integrated into Google’s products, there’s no timeline yet.

Third-party email app maker Sparrow just announced that it’s been purchased by Google. This morning, Dom Leca posted on the Sparrow blog that the company has been acquired by Google, and that they’re joining the Gmail team to “accomplish a bigger vision.” While Google has purchased desktop apps before (Bumptop), the Sparrow acquisition is one of the higher profile purchases.

The Gmail experience on iOS has been troubled with a rough launch, a limited feature set weaker than its Android brethren, and continued lack of support for multiple accounts, which opened up a space that the Sparrow team took advantage with its excellent iOS app. We’ve reached out to Google and Sparrow for comment.