What would Google want with a mobile e-mail client? If it happens to be one of the more popular services on Apple’s App Store, it just might want to buy it.
Google’s purchase of reMail seems to indicate that its competition with Apple is only intensifying as it moves deeper into the mobile arena. Datamation has the story.
reMail was one of many e-mail clients sold on the Apple App Store, at least until Wednesday. The mail client and its developer were purchased by search engine giant Google and promptly removed from the App Store.
The reMail client runs on both the iPhone and iPod Touch. It was very well-reviewed and popular. Among its appeals was that it let you store your entire e-mail account on your phone or iPod for quick searching.
Buying the company and promptly taking it out of circulation has struck bloggers and industry watchers as the latest step in an escalation of tensions and enmity between a search engine company and a consumer electronics company. On the surface, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) would seem like the last two companies to get in each other’s faces, but that appears to be the way things are headed.
Google’s move doesn’t just hurt iPhone/iPod Touch users, notes Marshall Kirkpatrick, vice president of content development at ReadWriteWeb. It deprives Apple of a really great acquisition target as well.
