We're excited to announce that Sparrow has been acquired
by Google!
We care a lot about how people communicate, and we did
our best to provide you with the most intuitive and
pleasurable mailing experience.
Now we're joining the Gmail team to accomplish a bigger
vision — one that we think we can better achieve with
Google.
We’d like to extend a special thanks to all of our users
who have supported us, advised us, given us priceless
feedback and allowed us to build a better mail
application. While we’ll be working on new things at
Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and
provide support for our users.
We had an amazing ride and can't thank you enough.
Full speed ahead!
Dom Leca
CEO
Sparrow
I would assume this means that Google is going to push even more focus on native app development on the iOS and Mac Platforms. I imagine this was just a talent acquisition.
I bloody well hope they continue development, and it becomes the official desktop/iPhone client. I love Sparrow, and would hate to see it vanish into the "acquired company" ether.
I was hoping for the same. But I think they are not going to do any more development on their Sparrow client according to the latest email they sent to the users.
Sucks for the current paid users, but hey who cares once they get a million more users and many more $$, right?
Wow. Hopefully this will give Gmail the kick in the pants it needs ... the interface really hasn't changed that much since the early days.
(Well, of course it's been prettified a bit, but besides a few things like Priority Inbox there have been scant few changes to the interaction. And I always liked that using Sparrow felt different to using the Gmail web interface.)
There isn't any room for improvement in Gmail? Really? It's still using the same basic design of every email client since forever (labels/mailboxes at the left, inbox shows a time-sorted list of messages, click through a message to read).
Meanwhile Sparrow showed what was possible if you sit down and at least tried to rethink the email interface -- with things like gestures, or by shifting towards streams rather than lists.
... which still doesn't excuse them not running with the idea and continuing to improve. Sparrow did; maybe I should have said "shifting further".
(And yes, Gmail popularized conversation view, but it was talked about at IBM Research and Microsoft Research years earlier. Of course, those guys are even worse at delivering innovative interfaces.)
Great to see Google investing in email UX. Sparrow is awesome and bringing the Sparrow UX ideals to Gmail will be a big boost forward.
The Sparrow co-founder and CEO Dom Leca discusses Gmail in some detail here...
Interviewer: Why can’t Google write a mail client for the iPhone that’s worth a crap?
Sparrow CEO: Because they don’t really care about it. I mean, they’re not in the native app business, and all that matters with them is to have an app that is identified as the Gmail app on the iOS App Store for mainstream to use, I think. I mean, they don’t believe at all in native things, which makes sense in relation to the whole company.
Interviewer: Right. So they just, they don’t believe in the native thing, or, they probably could deliver it, but they just don’t want to?
Sparrow CEO: Oh, yeah, of course. They could deliver something I think far better than Sparrow or the application they released, but they’re just not allocating any resources to this because they think it’s irrelevant.
I agree with him. You just have to use the Android Gmail app to notice that Google can do an awesome native e-mail app if they want. The phone client is so good that many times I prefer to use it than the web even when I am with my notebook.
I hope that this means that they're investing in email UX. That's my optimistic take on the acquisition. My pessimistic take on it is that they're just getting talented developers and product folks and they're going to have them working on something completely different.
Very well designed app, so congrats to them. My only gripe and what's prevented me from using it as my main email app on my phone has been the lack of push notifications. I'm really, really hoping they implement that in an upcoming release.
They had already implemented it, but were using a way of keeping the app running in the background that's reserved for apps that play music or track your GPS location. Apple rejected the app because Sparrow was neither.
There is another way, but you can't keep it open forever. Any app can request to stay open for a short time to do anything it wants after close. I use this for an app that saves data to the cloud. No reason to make the user wait around for the save. You can't stay open forever though which I suspect is what they were doing.
Just wanting to point out there is a third option, though not indefinitely.
So that was pull, not push. Push notifications was exactly the solution to the problem of apps constantly pulling in the background. Sparrow couldn't do push because they didn't want to have our emails on their server. Now that Google owns Sparrow, we can hope that they'll provide push. I wouldn't get my hopes up though :/
Yeah, I feel the same. Obviously, they had an offer they couldn't refuse, I'm sure, and I don't blame them for taking it. But that said, I love Sparrow and am saddened that it could end that fast.
Right there with you. Sparrow is effectively done now. Gmail itself doesn't need the improvements, the clients need to improve, which won't happen if they join the gmail team.
I think you grossly missed the point of Sparrow—as a webapp, it's 100% useless, because the current Gmail interface exists.
At best, they can take some UI/UX elements from Sparrow and incorporate them into Gmail as is, but porting it as a webapp or porting it to ChromeOS are both defeating the point of the app and platform, respectively.
Normally I would have agreed with you, but have you seen the latest Gmail native client for Android? It is hands-down the best mobile mail client I've ever used. Attractive and incredibly intuitive. Someone at Google has been taking their UX vitamins.
This is some pretty anti-Google flame baiting. What kind of design qualifications do you have? Have you even seen the Gmail app on Android? Gmail is also one of the easiest to use, nicest web apps ever created.
This must have been Sparrow's game plan from day one, so kudos to them. Hopefully it'll become the official Gmail app for iOS, get push support, and we can all enjoy the benefits.
The email Sparrow is sending out, looks like there won't be any future feature additions:
Hello,
We're excited to let you know that Sparrow has been
acquired by Google! You can view our public announcement
here, but I wanted to reach out directly to make sure you
were aware of the news.
We will continue to make available our existing products,
and we will provide support and critical updates to our
users. However, as we’ll be busy with new projects at
Google, we do not plan to release new features for the
Sparrow apps.
It’s been an honor and a pleasure to build products for all
of our wonderful users who have supported us over the
years. We can't thank you enough.
We look forward to working on some new and exciting
projects at Google!
Dom Leca
CEO
Sparrow
And I just purchased that app yesterday. I'll try and pursue getting a refund from Apple, although I'm not sure how successful I will be in the process. It's aggravating seeing potentially amazing start-up companies get purchased by a large company and then everything they've done seemingly ceases to exist.
Also, how many companies that Google acquires eventually just die off?
This is one of the issues one confronts (at least myself, as a user and startup founder) when purchasing goods and services from other startups:
>... we will provide support and critical updates to our users. However, as we’ll be busy with new projects at Google, we do not plan to release new features for the Sparrow apps.
I was hoping to see Sparrow for Mac further develop, it's my default email client, but it still has plenty of room for improvement. I just hope that "someone" continues where it left off.
Anybody knows if this is an acq-hire, acquisition with intention to further develop Sparrow, acquisition + shutting Sparrow?
As someone who bought Sparrow on the day it was released - and is in love with it - this feels like a big middle finger to the customers who have been supporting them.
The core of my disappointment is the expectation of future development that comes with buying into a relatively new piece of software. I didn't buy Sparrow thinking I was paying for a piece of software that was feature-complete. I bought Sparrow mail as a piece of innovative software along with the promise of lots of great future updates to come.
Now, those future updates are done, because Google killed them by acquihiring the Sparrow team.
It feels like more and more, when buying into a new exciting project, the risk is less that the project will fail on its own, and more that it'll be destroyed by an acquihire. Some day, I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a barrier to startups acquiring dedicated new users.
Well said. We're seeing a lot of "ship and dump" from startups these days. I'm to the point now where I don't recommend a startup to friends and family or use for business purposes unless their product is self-hostable(and release of source code upon an acquisition or corporate dissolution) or open-source. As you can imagine, the number of products I recommend has dwindled to almost nothing since I've been burned so much myself.
Unless the product or service meets the qualifications I mentioned then you can presume I'm not going to recommend it. Some companies that have been acquired have "done right" and released their product as open source afterwards. I would like to see more companies make this part of their agreement before purchase or use. While I'm comfortable with many things technical, many are not but open-sourcing a popular product will more likely than not allow those non-technical users to just pick up the use of that product with other providers.
A recent example is from Moxie's company Whispersystems and the open-sourcing of their Red Phone product. This came after their acquisition/sale by Twitter.
Does all of this greatly reduce my access to the latest and greatest? Yes it does but then often what is portrayed as the greatest by popularity is not necessarily a great product. And one further note of clarification, if this service is meant to be consumed in a disposable nature then obviously I've got no qualms about something like that as I enjoy actively participating in the world. There's a reason for pragmatism.
You need to chill out. Nothing screams "hyperbole" than "a middle finger to the customers". Did you expect them to lay out their strategy to the public like "Hey, thanks for investing in us but keep in mind that one day we'll probably join one of the bigger players. You see our product effectively brings together the best email service and the best OS in the world and presents them in a sexy way. So you don't think we will be seeing enormous growth just on the shoulders of that, do ya?"
It's never a good idea to buy a software product (or hardware product) for what it's "going to be." You have to buy or not buy it based on what it is today, because they may or may not go down the path you expect in the future.
What happened with Sparrow was unfortunate, but at the same time it was unlikely that an email client like this was ever going to turn into a great standalone business that would adequately compensate a dev team of that quality. One of the benefits of acquisitions like this is that they also encourage other great developers to try building terrific products and taking risks.
I'd also point out that we don't actually know what's going to happen with the codebase or design, just that this is the end of the road for the standalone email client "Sparrow". Obviously if any of that product is released by Google, it's not going to be called that anymore.
I agree that sucks, but there's lots of apps out there with bugs that should be fixed and won't ever be, even though their makers weren't bought by anyone. If someone sells you software with bugs that make it unusable, you should get your money back.
The core of my disappointment is the expectation of future development that comes with buying into a relatively new piece of software.
I don't know. This doesn't seem like the most useful stance to take when buying new software. You are almost always going to be disappointed. Nothing lasts for an eternity, whether due to acquisitions, laziness, burnout, etc. I think it's always better going into software purchases with the mindset that you are paying for the current feature set, and anything in addition is just gravy.
How long should they have supported the product with new updates? 6 months, a year, two years, 10 years? Or just until you got sick of it, or found something better?
When you buy a product, you pay for what it is, not fir what it can be.
This whole idea of free features for ever, is not economially viable in the first place.
It only works as long as they can keep getting new customers at a high rate. But at some point, that will slow down. Then they can either build a whole new product, or try charging current customers again.
My point being: you cant pay a fixed one time price for a service, only for a product as is. If you want constant new features, you should constantly be paying for their constant work.
In a free market transactions needn't be limited to simple currency for product exchanges. They can come with whatever strings, of whatever enforcability, the parties place on them.
So here a buyer had an expectation of future development and upgrade, some of them perhaps to be paid for. They invested time and attention learning a new interface and functionality, thinking those upgrades would provide returns on that time invested. Investments like that are how communities are built.
I know squadoosh about the small app market or Sparrow's marketing. But if there are a lot of buyers with expectations like that, then I think you have to speak to those when you are selling or yeah, there is an implicit agreement there. If Sparrow disclosed future plans or roadmaps then the agreement moves toward explicit.
Such obligations aren't enforceable, and what's customary within a market is obviously fuzzy. But that doesn't mean those obligations don't exist or aren't ethical.
Again, I know nothing about this case -- but if there was some understanding that the company would this, that or the other, then it is worth wondering about the ethics of a large company doing an acquisition, to hire people, in the knowledge that the deal breaks some tacit deal with a community.
I agree that some kind of support should continue.
But in the case of an email app, focused on simplicity and ui design; not feature sets for power users, i dont think this expectation can reasonably consist of new features.
On the other hand: the value was in the ui design, not some dificult technological challenge. If there is actually a viable market here, chances are more than one player will follow in their footsteps. UI designs are easy to copy.
And until then, the kind of support one can reasonable expect, will continue: bug fixes.
>> this feels like a big middle finger to the customers who have been supporting them.
During the first bubble, Oracle told one of my customers that they should buy their license for $300K before prices went up. A week after they bought, the price dropped $100K. Now that's getting a big middle finger.
To make this claim about software that costs less than $10 and pays itself off in less than a week? Well that's just being dramatic.
As someone who bought Sparrow on the day it was released - and is in love with it - this feels like a big middle finger to the customers who have been supporting them.
Oh, please. Unless you're sending these devs money on a regular basis then you're not supporting them, and it's completely foolish to think otherwise. Your continued use of their software does not put any food on their table.
You paid money one time for a piece of software and that's exactly what you got. You deserve nothing more.
This attitude that a one-time payment of a few dollars somehow entitles users to a lifetime of free software, free features, and free updates is utterly irrational; as of a few dollars would grant someone license to a lifetime of a developer's work.
I can totally see why Google would want to aquire them. I can totally see why they would want to get aquired by Google.
This is still a very sad day for me as a customer. I love Sparrow, but I don't love Gmail. So seeing developers who created something I love move on to something I don't love is very sad.
These are not the success stories of Sparrow, but 3 that I recall that when purchased went dark in some form, to (possibly) re-emerge less than their former selves.
Its not to say that this acquisition is not a great thing for the Sparrow team, or that Gmail may someday improve (UI wise), but it is an unfortunate trend for users when a great small / niche product is absorbed and obliterated.
What a self serving piece of crap email. I'm happy he and his team are excited. But it's terrible news for their users.
They make it sound like we should be happy and excited about this. Please... I've lost all respect for this guy.
The right thing to do was spin it off to someone else; or make arrangements with Google to continuing development, or open source the whole app. The wrong thing to do was to screw the "user" by leaving us all hanging.
Argh, I love Sparrow. Why couldn't you do the 37 Signals/Panic/Mail Chimp thing and not sell and just be a nice profitable company that provides some consistency - ohwell.
Like everyone else I think the App Store lost a great app today. However, I also couldn't figure out how Sparrow would be able to grow on $10 one time purchases. Having been a big fan of Eudora back when it was sekrit hacker group at Qualcomm (well not so sekrit but certainly not part of Qualcomm's core business) I talked with their VP of product at some conference and he basically lamented that once you sold it to someone you were done. They didn't like selling bug fixes as 'upgrades' (that was just a paid support model) and once you had a working client there wasn't much reason to upgrade. The 'free' ad-supported version had a better revenue future than the purchased one.
By the same token these guys have to eat right? So its not like they can do the open source route. They really need to be part of a bigger stable of things in order to make it a business.
I did think it would be a good acquisition for Apple as the front end for their gmail killer.
> I also couldn't figure out how Sparrow would be able to grow on $10 one time purchases.
Can a small company survive on one-time purchases of desktop applications? If Sparrow charged $100, they might have more time to scale up their customers, but they would have fewer customers.
Has Y Combinator invested in startups whose primary product was a desktop application?
I haven't used Sparrow, since I don't have an iOS device, but any particular reason why Google thought they needed to buy it? What could Sparrow bring to the Gmail mobile app that Google couldn't do themselves (or well enough)? Or maybe they just wanted it so the competition doesn't get it first, just like Facebook wanted Instagram?
Sparrow was the only native app that managed to offer a better Gmail experience than the Gmail web app. Google's desktop and phone gmail apps have been generally, not great. Sparrow's was.
392 comments
[ 5.0 ms ] story [ 375 ms ] threadHere's hoping that that means my Sparrow app isn't going anywhere...
I don't even see how anyone could debate this.
> Google buys Sparrow, current apps will not get any new features
we're off to a great start.
And Google has not been shy about killing stuff outright, or gutting products to force users into G+, these last two years.
edit: Ah, and they're not going to be adding any new features.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/7/20/3172222/google-buys-sparro...
(Well, of course it's been prettified a bit, but besides a few things like Priority Inbox there have been scant few changes to the interaction. And I always liked that using Sparrow felt different to using the Gmail web interface.)
And why should it? I haven't used Sparrow, but I have no problems with gmail. How is it different / better?
Gmail is pretty much perfect and the Labs additions can basically give you a "Sparrow-like" window and viewing pane already.
APPLE needs these improvements, not google.
There isn't any room for improvement in Gmail? Really? It's still using the same basic design of every email client since forever (labels/mailboxes at the left, inbox shows a time-sorted list of messages, click through a message to read).
Meanwhile Sparrow showed what was possible if you sit down and at least tried to rethink the email interface -- with things like gestures, or by shifting towards streams rather than lists.
People weren't used to seeing emails that followed like IM conversations.
(And yes, Gmail popularized conversation view, but it was talked about at IBM Research and Microsoft Research years earlier. Of course, those guys are even worse at delivering innovative interfaces.)
The Sparrow co-founder and CEO Dom Leca discusses Gmail in some detail here...
Interviewer: Why can’t Google write a mail client for the iPhone that’s worth a crap?
Sparrow CEO: Because they don’t really care about it. I mean, they’re not in the native app business, and all that matters with them is to have an app that is identified as the Gmail app on the iOS App Store for mainstream to use, I think. I mean, they don’t believe at all in native things, which makes sense in relation to the whole company.
Interviewer: Right. So they just, they don’t believe in the native thing, or, they probably could deliver it, but they just don’t want to?
Sparrow CEO: Oh, yeah, of course. They could deliver something I think far better than Sparrow or the application they released, but they’re just not allocating any resources to this because they think it’s irrelevant.
Source: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/03/15/interview-dom-leca-of-...
I believe now, Sparrow will be a free product :)
Just wanting to point out there is a third option, though not indefinitely.
At best, they can take some UI/UX elements from Sparrow and incorporate them into Gmail as is, but porting it as a webapp or porting it to ChromeOS are both defeating the point of the app and platform, respectively.
Thanks.
Also, how many companies that Google acquires eventually just die off?
>... we will provide support and critical updates to our users. However, as we’ll be busy with new projects at Google, we do not plan to release new features for the Sparrow apps.
I was hoping to see Sparrow for Mac further develop, it's my default email client, but it still has plenty of room for improvement. I just hope that "someone" continues where it left off.
Anybody knows if this is an acq-hire, acquisition with intention to further develop Sparrow, acquisition + shutting Sparrow?
The core of my disappointment is the expectation of future development that comes with buying into a relatively new piece of software. I didn't buy Sparrow thinking I was paying for a piece of software that was feature-complete. I bought Sparrow mail as a piece of innovative software along with the promise of lots of great future updates to come.
Now, those future updates are done, because Google killed them by acquihiring the Sparrow team.
It feels like more and more, when buying into a new exciting project, the risk is less that the project will fail on its own, and more that it'll be destroyed by an acquihire. Some day, I wouldn't be surprised if this becomes a barrier to startups acquiring dedicated new users.
"Let's make as much money from our abandonware as possible before we have to tell everyone it's abandonware."
A recent example is from Moxie's company Whispersystems and the open-sourcing of their Red Phone product. This came after their acquisition/sale by Twitter.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4256801
Does all of this greatly reduce my access to the latest and greatest? Yes it does but then often what is portrayed as the greatest by popularity is not necessarily a great product. And one further note of clarification, if this service is meant to be consumed in a disposable nature then obviously I've got no qualms about something like that as I enjoy actively participating in the world. There's a reason for pragmatism.
What happened with Sparrow was unfortunate, but at the same time it was unlikely that an email client like this was ever going to turn into a great standalone business that would adequately compensate a dev team of that quality. One of the benefits of acquisitions like this is that they also encourage other great developers to try building terrific products and taking risks.
I'd also point out that we don't actually know what's going to happen with the codebase or design, just that this is the end of the road for the standalone email client "Sparrow". Obviously if any of that product is released by Google, it's not going to be called that anymore.
I don't know. This doesn't seem like the most useful stance to take when buying new software. You are almost always going to be disappointed. Nothing lasts for an eternity, whether due to acquisitions, laziness, burnout, etc. I think it's always better going into software purchases with the mindset that you are paying for the current feature set, and anything in addition is just gravy.
How long should they have supported the product with new updates? 6 months, a year, two years, 10 years? Or just until you got sick of it, or found something better?
When you buy a product, you pay for what it is, not fir what it can be.
This whole idea of free features for ever, is not economially viable in the first place.
It only works as long as they can keep getting new customers at a high rate. But at some point, that will slow down. Then they can either build a whole new product, or try charging current customers again.
My point being: you cant pay a fixed one time price for a service, only for a product as is. If you want constant new features, you should constantly be paying for their constant work.
So no. You dont get to complain,
So here a buyer had an expectation of future development and upgrade, some of them perhaps to be paid for. They invested time and attention learning a new interface and functionality, thinking those upgrades would provide returns on that time invested. Investments like that are how communities are built.
I know squadoosh about the small app market or Sparrow's marketing. But if there are a lot of buyers with expectations like that, then I think you have to speak to those when you are selling or yeah, there is an implicit agreement there. If Sparrow disclosed future plans or roadmaps then the agreement moves toward explicit.
Such obligations aren't enforceable, and what's customary within a market is obviously fuzzy. But that doesn't mean those obligations don't exist or aren't ethical.
Again, I know nothing about this case -- but if there was some understanding that the company would this, that or the other, then it is worth wondering about the ethics of a large company doing an acquisition, to hire people, in the knowledge that the deal breaks some tacit deal with a community.
But in the case of an email app, focused on simplicity and ui design; not feature sets for power users, i dont think this expectation can reasonably consist of new features.
On the other hand: the value was in the ui design, not some dificult technological challenge. If there is actually a viable market here, chances are more than one player will follow in their footsteps. UI designs are easy to copy.
And until then, the kind of support one can reasonable expect, will continue: bug fixes.
During the first bubble, Oracle told one of my customers that they should buy their license for $300K before prices went up. A week after they bought, the price dropped $100K. Now that's getting a big middle finger.
To make this claim about software that costs less than $10 and pays itself off in less than a week? Well that's just being dramatic.
Oh, please. Unless you're sending these devs money on a regular basis then you're not supporting them, and it's completely foolish to think otherwise. Your continued use of their software does not put any food on their table.
You paid money one time for a piece of software and that's exactly what you got. You deserve nothing more.
This attitude that a one-time payment of a few dollars somehow entitles users to a lifetime of free software, free features, and free updates is utterly irrational; as of a few dollars would grant someone license to a lifetime of a developer's work.
This is still a very sad day for me as a customer. I love Sparrow, but I don't love Gmail. So seeing developers who created something I love move on to something I don't love is very sad.
Its OK to sell, but they should have pushed Google to maintain an support Sparrow for at least 2 more years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Google http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/23/googles-david-lawee-one-thi...
So really, Google seems to be the place where 1/3 of acquisitions (in which not 100% are "good", per se) go to die.
http://etherpad.com/ http://arstechnica.com/business/2008/01/jaiku-users-flee-to-... http://techcrunch.com/2008/02/27/it-took-16-months-but-googl...
Its not to say that this acquisition is not a great thing for the Sparrow team, or that Gmail may someday improve (UI wise), but it is an unfortunate trend for users when a great small / niche product is absorbed and obliterated.
Makes me sad.
They make it sound like we should be happy and excited about this. Please... I've lost all respect for this guy.
The right thing to do was spin it off to someone else; or make arrangements with Google to continuing development, or open source the whole app. The wrong thing to do was to screw the "user" by leaving us all hanging.
Argh, I love Sparrow. Why couldn't you do the 37 Signals/Panic/Mail Chimp thing and not sell and just be a nice profitable company that provides some consistency - ohwell.
Like everyone else I think the App Store lost a great app today. However, I also couldn't figure out how Sparrow would be able to grow on $10 one time purchases. Having been a big fan of Eudora back when it was sekrit hacker group at Qualcomm (well not so sekrit but certainly not part of Qualcomm's core business) I talked with their VP of product at some conference and he basically lamented that once you sold it to someone you were done. They didn't like selling bug fixes as 'upgrades' (that was just a paid support model) and once you had a working client there wasn't much reason to upgrade. The 'free' ad-supported version had a better revenue future than the purchased one.
By the same token these guys have to eat right? So its not like they can do the open source route. They really need to be part of a bigger stable of things in order to make it a business.
I did think it would be a good acquisition for Apple as the front end for their gmail killer.
Can a small company survive on one-time purchases of desktop applications? If Sparrow charged $100, they might have more time to scale up their customers, but they would have fewer customers.
Has Y Combinator invested in startups whose primary product was a desktop application?
iOS Mail needs those gestures more than Google does.
Support is not "development" if you are just fixing outstanding issues, that's "maintenance".