VMware didn’t let this week’s news that it was included in the $67 billion merger with Dell prevent it from breaking some news of its own, announcing plans to purchase email management app Boxer for an undisclosed amount at VMworld Europe.
Even though EMC owns 80 percent of VMware, it has always operated as an independent entity, publicly traded under a separate stock. It probably shouldn’t come as a complete surprise that it’s continuing to make its own moves, but it’s still hard to miss the timing here.
The company will fold Boxer into AirWatch, the enterprise mobility management company it purchased 2014 for $1.5 billion. The idea behind that purchase was to provide security when employees are working on mobile devices outside of the office.
Boxer takes that mission a step further by giving companies an email management solution that integrates well with other cloud applications like Box, Dropbox, Evernote, Gmail, Salesforce and Outlook, among others. It is taking AirWatch from the realm of simply managing mobility to actually providing one of its own applications, and a popular one at that.
As VMware CTO Noah Wasmer pointed out in a blog post, email is the most commonly used productivity app on the smartphone, followed by content and business apps. AirWatch now covers it all, providing a smarter email app for companies that want it along with security for whatever other mobile apps they happen to be using.
“Upon closing of the acquisition, the combination of Boxer and AirWatch by VMware will create a world-class suite of services that will enable businesses to provide their employees with secure access to their email, content and apps,” Wasmer wrote.
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Using Boxer, employees can quickly process email — sharing it, moving it to other cloud applications, marking it as read or as Spam. — simply by swiping left or right on the individual email to bring up processing options.
Boxer, which has raised $3 million dollars, will be folded into the AirWatch team. Boxer itself purchased Enhanced Email in 2014 to move the app to Android. At the time it was only an iOS application.
