A number of months after Microsoft launched its Groove Music service, the company has officially acquired the small startup also named Groove. Originally known as Zikera, the three-man team from Quebec, Canada, created the Groove: Smart Music Player app for iOS and Windows 8.1.
Groove: Smart Music Player was powered by Last.FM and acted as a virtual front-end DJ for music. The app scanned the music library of its user and created curated playlists based on the user's preferences. In a post on Medium today, the Groove team stated:
"Our journey started back in the days of the iPod. While it was a thing of beauty, we still struggled to choose what to play from our beloved music collection. From that instant, we envisioned a music player so intelligent that learns our tastes and habits in order to play the right music at the right time. Then Groove was born, and you made it a success. We are incredibly proud to have delighted you with a rich mobile experience and countless hours of music bliss through the tens of millions of personalized playlists we generated."
The Groove: Smart Music Player app itself will no longer be available for download, but people who have already installed it can continue to use it. No more updates for the apps will be released. Today's post did not reveal the specific financial terms Microsoft made to acquire Groove.
Source: Groove (Medium)
