San Francisco-based Dropbox has expanded its collaborative file-sharing platform beyond storage by acquiring Orchestra, creator of iOS email app Mailbox.
Mailbox lets iPhone users organise and manage emails on an iPhone. Orchestra claims that the app, which was released on a first-come, first served basis in February, has been requested by over 1.3 million users and processes more than 60 million emails daily.
The app's features include swipe gestures to archive or delete emails, a 'snooze' feature to put off dealing with messages until later and push notifications.
In a company blog post on Friday, Orchestra said Mailbox would connect to Dropbox while remaining a stand-alone app.
"Rather than grow Mailbox on our own, we’ve decided to join forces with Dropbox and build it out together," the post said. "To be clear, Mailbox is not going away. The product needs to grow fast, and we believe that joining Dropbox is the best way to make that happen."
In a blog post on Dropbox's website on Friday, the company's founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi said Mailbox is "simple, delightful and beautifully engineered".
They added, "After spending time with Gentry, Scott and the team, it became clear that their calling was the same as ours at Dropbox—to solve life’s hidden problems and re-imagine the things we do every day. We all quickly realised that together we could save millions of people a lot of pain. Dropbox doesn’t replace your folders or your hard drive: it makes them better. The same is true with Mailbox. It doesn’t replace your email: it makes it better."
Orchestra, which previously raised over $5 million from Charles River Ventures and others in November 2011, also developed the iOS productivity app Orchestra To-Do.
In February, Dropbox upgraded its Dropbox for Teams admin console with a number of features geared towards enterprise users.
The new console allows admin staff to manage employee access permissions, monitor individual employee activity including their use of particular devices and third-party applications, and terminate user sessions instantly in the case of a security breach.
