Google acquires Sparrow email client developer

Google has agreed to acquire email software firm Sparrow.

The acquisition, announced on Sparrow's company site, will give Google a pair of email clients for Apple's iOS and MacOS X platforms.

Sparrow chief executive Dom Leca said that the Sparrow team would work within Google as part of the Gmail team. The company will also continue to develop and support the Sparrow email clients, though the applications will be transitioning to Google's terms of service.

"We’d like to extend a special thanks to all of our users who have supported us, advised us, given us priceless feedback and allowed us to build a better mail application," Leca said.

"While we’ll be working on new things at Google, we will continue to make Sparrow available and provide support for our users."

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, though a report from the Verge suggested that the acquisition price was under $25m.

News of the acquisition comes as Google continues to push its Gmail service. The company recently reported that the service was the most popular webmail client on the market, with an estimated 425 million users.

Earlier this year, the company overhauled the Gmail service, adding integration with the Google+ social network and the Google search homepage.