Microsoft buys iOS, Android calendar vendor Sunrise

It's official: Microsoft has purchased calendar-application vendor Sunrise for an undisclosed amount.

Last week, TechCrunch reported that Microsoft had bought Sunrise, the vendor behind a free, popular calendar application for iOS and Android devices for more than $100 million. But Microsoft didn't confirm the acquisition officially until today, February 11.

The Sunrise acquisition comes on the heels of Microsoft's December 2014 purchase of Acompli, a startup that built popular e-mail client apps for iOS and Android devices. Microsoft rebranded the Acompli applications as Outlook earlier this month and promised updates and tighter integration with Microsoft's own cloud (rather than Amazon's) would be coming via updates soon.

In writing about these acquisitions, Fast Company noted that Microsoft's strategy with these two purchases goes beyond simply wanting to be a cross-platform app vendor. Microsoft also wants these applications because of their hooks into other popular applications and services.

"What Microsoft really wants to do--and what apps like Sunrise and Acompli enable--is to create a new kind of service that sits above all the others. Essentially, it's trying to turn its cloud competitors into dumb pipes," wrote Fast Company's Jared Newman.