VMware to acquire email and task management startup Boxer, merge it with AirWatch
Tom Cheredar / Gigaom :
Context & Ripple Effects
The Boxer deal extends a buying streak aimed squarely at VMware's end-user computing stack: two months earlier it picked up Immidio to bolster the same AirWatch-led mobile management line (bolstering mobile device management with the Immidio buy). Folding a native email and task client into AirWatch turns device management into a fuller workspace play rather than just policy enforcement.
It also fits the broader pattern of VMware assembling capabilities by acquisition around its core franchises — from vCloud Air integrations like the BigQuery and Cloud Datastore tie-up to later buys of monitoring and app-analytics firms such as Wavefront.
First-order effects
- Boxer's email and task management product becomes an AirWatch component, giving VMware's mobility customers a managed inbox alongside device enrollment and security policies.
- Boxer's team and roadmap are absorbed into the AirWatch organization, ending the startup's run as an independent vendor competing on its own.
Second-order effects
- Rival mobile management vendors face pressure to match the bundled approach, since enterprises weighing AirWatch now compare full workspaces — mail, tasks, apps, device control — against point-product stacks.
- Email and productivity startups selling into the same enterprise mobility market find one large acquirer consolidating demand, narrowing their exit paths and raising the bar for standalone traction.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, enterprise mobility consolidates around platform vendors that own the whole stack — device, apps, content — squeezing independent mobile-first software makers toward acquisition or niche positioning.
- VMware's serial tuck-in strategy (management, identity, now productivity) points toward end-user computing becoming a packaged suite business where integration breadth, not individual feature depth, decides deals.
The trend: Enterprise mobile management is consolidating into all-in-one workspace suites as platform acquirers like VMware buy their way from device control up into apps and productivity.