Microsoft makes its Wunderlist successor, To-Do, available in preview as part of Office 365; Wunderlist will “eventually” be retired
Microsoft's ‘Project Cheshire,’ the successor to its Wunderlist to-do app, is now in public preview for many Office 365 users on a variety of devices.
Context & Ripple Effects
Microsoft's 2015 purchase of 6Wunderkinder, maker of Wunderlist (confirmed at the time by Microsoft), left the popular to-do app in limbo while the company built an internal replacement under the codename Project Cheshire. This preview release is the first public look at that successor, distributed through Office 365 across multiple devices rather than as a standalone product.
The arc that follows validates the strategy and its costs: Microsoft later rebuilt To Do to look more like Wunderlist after user pushback, set a hard shutdown date of May 6, 2020, and on closing day updated To Do with new features while Wunderlist's own founder began work on a competing app called Superlist (covered here).
First-order effects
- Office 365 subscribers gain early access to To-Do on multiple devices, giving them a sanctioned migration path off Wunderlist years before the shutdown.
- Wunderlist users now face a confirmed end-of-life: Microsoft has committed to retiring the app they currently rely on.
Second-order effects
- The forced migration creates an opening for Wunderlist's original founder, who responds with Superlist — turning the sunsetting of his own creation into a direct competitive threat to Microsoft's replacement.
- Bundling To-Do into Office 365 makes task management another suite feature rather than a standalone product, pressuring independent to-do apps to justify subscriptions against what subscribers already pay for.
Third-order effects
- The pattern — acquire a beloved consumer app, absorb its function into the flagship suite, then retire the brand — becomes a template for how large platform companies treat standalone acquisitions, with displaced founders increasingly launching 'spiritual successor' apps to recapture the orphaned user base.
The trend: Consumer productivity apps are being consolidated into office-suite bundles, with acquisitions ending in forced migrations and exiled founders rebuilding rivals around the retired products.