SwiftKey confirms Microsoft purchase

SwiftKey is a company that makes some of the more popular mobile keyboards that are available for smartphone users outside of the factory offerings out there. Yesterday a rumor was making the rounds that Microsoft might have purchased SwiftKey for $250 million. Today SwiftKey has confirmed that the purchase happened.

SwiftKey announced that as of today it has agreed to join the Microsoft family. Microsoft didn't only want the keyboard software, what it really wanted was the language prediction technology that SwiftKey uses in its keyboard app.

The SwiftKey app is popular with it having recorded an estimated 10 trillion keystrokes in 100 different languages for a cumulative 100,000 years of reclaimed typing. Despite being purchased by Microsoft, SwiftKey says that its apps will still be offered on iOS and Android at no cost.

The company says that it will continue to improve the apps in new ways under the Microsoft umbrella. There is no confirmation from SwiftKey of the purchase price that Microsoft paid for the company. It's also unclear if the SwiftKey team will be folded into a Microsoft team or if it will continue to operate separately. It's also unclear what will happen to the SwiftKey employees at this time.

SOURCE: SwiftKey