14 DAY TRIAL // Christian Reber, the man who founded Wunderlist and created the app that was eventually sold to Microsoft back in 2015, wants the software giant to give back the app in order to save it from getting the ax.
Four years ago, Microsoft paid somewhere in between $100 million and $200 million to take over Wunderlist, an application which at that point was a leading choice in the to-do software category.
After migrating some of the top features to Microsoft To-Do, the software giant is now planning to retire Wunderlist for good, something that Reber thinks shouldn’t happen.
As a result, he hopes Microsoft would allow him to buy the app back in order to keep it alive, deliver new updates, and further improve it on desktop and mobile.
“Still sad @Microsoft wants to shut down @Wunderlist, even though people still love and use it. I’m serious @satyanadella @marcusash, please let me buy it back. Keep the team and focus on @MicrosoftToDo, and no one will be angry for not shutting down @Wunderlist,” he posted.
Saving the app from extinction
In a follow-up tweet, the Wunderlist creator says he wants the app to become 100 percent open-source and free forever for consumers and work faster on the desktop. He also detailed some of the features he wants to be added to Wunderlist, such as shared folders, collaborative note-taking, and board view.
Microsoft hasn’t responded to Reber’s request, so it’ll be interesting to see how the software giant handles this. Meanwhile, the Wunderlist owner says the Microsoft acquisition was “the best thing that ever happened to us,” explaining that the only reason he wants to buy the app back is to save it from extinction.
“I’m just sad that our plans for @Wunderlist didn’t work out, but I also don’t want to point fingers at anyone. Acquisitions are hard. Acompli (now Outlook) worked out perfectly. That's life,” he said.
I’ve reached out to Microsoft for some comments on this and will update the article if an answer is offered.