Microsoft makes Send hybrid texting-email app available for Android, expands availability for iPhone users to UK, Brazil, and Denmark, adds features for iPhone
Mary Jo Foley / ZDNet :
Context & Ripple Effects
Two months after the iPhone-only July launch of Send — Microsoft's short-form email app that behaves like instant messaging — the company has closed the platform gap by shipping an Android version and widening iPhone availability to the UK, Brazil, and Denmark, alongside new iPhone features.
Send is not an isolated experiment: it sits beside the Invite meeting-scheduling app for iPhone and the Skype Messaging beta on Windows 10 Mobile as part of a cluster of lightweight, mobile-first communication apps Microsoft was testing across platforms in late 2015.
First-order effects
- Android users can now use Send for the first time, removing the iPhone exclusivity that defined the app at launch.
- iPhone users in the UK, Brazil, and Denmark move from excluded markets to supported ones, tripling Send's announced country footprint beyond its original availability.
Second-order effects
- With Send, Invite, and Skype Messaging all live or in beta at once, Microsoft is running parallel messaging experiments rather than consolidating behind a single app — forcing its own portfolio to compete internally for which interaction model wins.
- Each expansion makes Send a more credible companion to Outlook on mobile, putting pressure on Microsoft to decide whether short-form messaging lives inside Outlook or stays a separate surface.
Third-order effects
- The later record in this coverage — Outlook gaining quick-reply in 2017 and the combined Word-Excel-PowerPoint Office app arriving in 2019 — points toward standalone experiments being folded into core apps once their concepts prove out, making launches like Send trial balloons for feature absorption rather than permanent products.
- If the pattern holds, Microsoft's app strategy structurally favors shipping narrow tools fast on rival mobile platforms first, using them to probe demand before deciding what earns a place in the flagship suite.
The trend: Microsoft's 2015-era playbook of launching narrow, mobile-first Office companions on iOS and Android — then absorbing the successful ones into flagship apps like Outlook — is one data point in the broader shift of productivity software from single monolithic suites to fleets of disposable experiments.