Google Buys iPhone Search App, Kills It

Hugh Pickens writes "PC World reports that Google has acquired a popular iPhone application called reMail that provides 'lightning fast' full-text search of your Gmail and IMAP e-mail accounts. The app downloads copies of all your e-mail which can then be searched with various Boolean options. reMail has only been in the application store for about six months — with a free version limited to one Gmail account and a premium version which can connect to multiple accounts. 'Google and reMail have decided to discontinue reMail's iPhone application, and we have removed it from the App Store,' writes company founder Gabor Cselle, who will be returning to Google as a Product Manager on the Gmail team. Google isn't saying what the fate of reMail might be. Some are suggesting reMail could be integrated into Gmail search or live on in some form as a part of Android, Google's mobile platform. Another possibility is that Google may have snapped up reMail just to kill it, not because reMail was a competitor to anything Google had, but because reMail made the iPhone better or the acquisition may have more to do with keeping good search technology away from the competition, as opposed to an attempt to undercut the iPhone. 'Perhaps Google is just planning to buy up all the iPhone developers, one at a time, until Android is the only game in town,' writes Bill Ray at the Register."

Comments

Fate?

[Em Emalb]

It'll be "re-incorporated" into some distant version of gmail.

Otherwise, buying an app like this and not using it is a complete and utter waste of time.

Re:Fate?

[Draek]

You are correct it is a very Microsoft kind of thing to do. This is definately in the realm of embrace-extend-extinguish.

Wrong. Embrace-Extend-Extinguish is when you Embrace a competitor's product/standard, Extend it in ways incompatible with the original product, and Extinguish it by pushing your own product so hard in the minds of consumers it is you, and not your competitor or the standards body, who determines what's the standard to follow.

What Microsoft tried to do with HTML before Firefox, and Java before the anti-trust lawsuit are E-E-E. Arguably, what Apple, Nokia and Google are trying to do with h.264 and HTML5 is also E-E-E. But simply buying a company that makes a popular product for a competing platform isn't E-E-E, it's just business as usual and examples of such are plentiful in the corporate world.

lulz

[Pojut]

Sounds like a case of Google in a Microsoft's clothing.

Totally idiotic conclusions

[MemoryDragon]

Googles interest is to route as much traffic as possible to their services so that they can earn the ad revenues, now this application basically performed inbox searches without redirecting the user to gmail (where google would get the money from the ad revenues)
So they simply killed it because it did not bring them any revenues!

Re:Totally idiotic conclusions

[BrokenHalo]

Googles interest is to route as much traffic as possible to their services so that they can earn the ad revenues

That was what immediately occurred to me too. Google isn't being *very* evil, it's just trying to maintain its income base. I don't have (or even particularly want) an iPhone, but given Apple's various ways of pursuing its business model, evilness seems to mean different things to different people.

Just to be clear, I'm not particularly bashing Apple (I'm typing this on a MacBook I inherited from my wife when she upgraded to a more recent model), I'm just saying let's not be hypocrites.

Re:Totally idiotic conclusions

[0xdeadbeef]

That's why they killed POP access, too!

Oh, wait, no they didn't.

Slashdot should be embarrassed for all the FUD they've been posting. Apple is the new Microsoft, except for Apple fanboys, who hold Google as the new Microsoft.

Re:Totally idiotic conclusions

[kjart]

Slashdot should be embarrassed for all the FUD they've been posting. Apple is the new Microsoft, except for Apple fanboys, who hold Google as the new Microsoft.

It never ceases to amaze me when people are surprised when giant corporations behave like giant corporations.

Google saw a good thing...

[H0p313ss]

... and bought the company.

company founder Gabor Cselle, who will be returning to Google as a Product Manager on the Gmail team

It is perfectly normal to pull the product temporarily to re-brand and redirect during an acquisition that is technically interesting but does not completely meet the company vision. Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:Google saw a good thing...

[tool462]

No kidding. In related news, did you know that Delta bought Northwest Airlines, and now they're killing it off? Seriously. They're removing all the NWA planes, and replacing them with Delta planes. And soon you won't even be able to buy tickets on NWA, you'll have to buy them on Delta. It's more evil than Stalin and Hitler combined!

Google bought the company (one guy and his app). The value for them is in the technology, not the reMail brand. They'll include the parts they like with the gmail service. The guy who created the app got a nice chunk of change from the purchase and a job at a company many would be excited to work for. This is capitalism in it's most basic form. A guy created something of value and was rewarded for it. If this qualifies as evil, you are in the wrong country.

Re:Don't be Evil?

[c]

> So much for _that_ motto... as if they lived by it
> in the first place.

You'll need to explain why playing hardball with Apple counts, in some way, as "evil". The developer got a nice permanent job and a pile of cash, existing users still get to use the app they bought. Potential users are out of luck, but I don't see how Google owes them anything...

c.

Profit

[LtGordon]

10 START COMPANY
20 COMPETE WITH GOOGLE
30 GET BOUGHT BY GOOGLE
40 GOTO 10

Re:How is this different from Apple?

[delinear]

Maybe because there's a big difference between "killing" and "giving a huge bag of money and a job and the potential to integrate the app into the google codebase", regardless of how the Register/Slashdot try and spin the story title?

Re:I use iGmail for full body searches

[Anonymous Coward]

Full body searches is something that is very important for an email app.

I don't know why you like full body searches so much, but I consider them invasive and uncomfortable. But I guess if you like that sort of thing....

Re:Don't be Evil?

[Archangel Michael]

Actually, this is a good case for why a developer would FOSS an application in the first place. Of course, if you're in "Please Google buy me out and make me rich beyond avarice" mode, then you wouldn't.

How about creating a semi FOSS license that remains closed source, and immediately becomes FOSS or Public Domain should the company ever fold, or the software itself becomes otherwise unavailable.

Kind of a poison pill of everlasting life. It would prevent applications from ever disappearing except by natural death (nobody wants it any longer).

It's happened before... it'll happen again

[DogDude]

DVD Shrink was arguably the best DVD copying software (freeware) out there until the developer was hired by Nero, one of the leading companies that made competing DVD copying software. Since their software was doing the same thing (albeit, for a price), there wasn't any technical information that could have been garnered by hiring the guy. The developer just stopped development on the software immediately, and hasn't updated it since.

There's no reason to think that Google isn't doing the same thing.

Re:Microgoogle?

[bluefoxlucid]

Yes. Their option was to hire on talent and reward the original creator of something they found interesting; or create their own, integrate it, somehow subtly alter their backend to break the competitor's work, and destroy their competitor's user base (along with any hope of making money).