Microsoft - SwiftKey acquisition for $250M

[StamatisX]

Microsoft is planning to acquire the London-based AI powered predictive keyboard manufacturer for around $250M. The UK start-up company founded in 2008 by Jon Reynolds and Ben Medlock, is installed on hundreds of millions of smartphones across the globe and has more than 150 employees in London, San Francisco and Seoul.

Swiftkey, which is considered by its founders as a language technology company, is offering the app free for download in both Android and iOS devices since 2014.  It supports more than 100 languages and uses artificial intelligence in order to learn the writing style of its user and be able to predict the next word to be typed.

This is not the only company Microsoft is trying to acquire in an effort to regain a foothold in mobile but neither it is for Google with DeepMind or for Apple with VocalIQ whose AI software helps computer and people converse more naturally.  

Despite being installed on more than 300M devices and being on top of app chart as one of the most popular app, SwiftKey's selling price was lower than what investors might have hoped for a couple of years ago. 

 

 

 

 

Source: Financial Times

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[Michael]

Love SwiftKey and hoping that msft won't destroy it.

Sent from my XT1572 using Tapatalk

[MaDkawi636]

Keep a backup .apk copy just in case!