Yahoo buys e-mail software firm Stata

IDG News Service - Yahoo Inc. has snapped up privately held software company Stata Labs, which develops technology allowing users to quickly search through e-mail and attachments. The move, announced yesterday, generated speculation that the Internet powerhouse is gearing up to take on Google Inc.'s Gmail webmail service, which features broad capabilities to search e-mail messages.
San Mateo, Calif.-based Stata offered an e-mail client called Bloomba, which let users manage and organize multiple e-mail accounts, search through mail and even save searches as views. It had been lauded by reviewers as efficient and easy to use, but it lacked a high profile and large development budget.
Yahoo doesn't plan to continue offering Bloomba or its spam filter software SAproxy Pro, but the acquisition will provide the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based search company with "technological expertise and strategic assets," according to a statement posted on Stata's Web site.
Further details of the transaction weren't disclosed.
Stata is the second e-mail company Yahoo purchased this year. In July, it acquired San Francisco e-mail start-up Oddpost Inc., which offered a Web-based e-mail product with an interface that functioned like a desktop program, allowing users to organize and delete messages by dragging them into folders.
That Yahoo is ramping up its investments to gain greater e-mail organizing abilities comes as little surprise, according to Jupiter Research analyst Michael Gartenberg. "It's becoming clear that the ability to do search is absolutely critical in this age of information overload," he said. "Yahoo obviously wants to get into this market and offer its customers search capabilities."
The buy also comes as Yahoo faces increasing competition from search giant Google. In addition to rolling out a beta of Gmail earlier this year, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google just last week introduced a desktop search application that allows users to search for information in PC files, local e-mail and instant messaging sessions.
It isn't clear whether Yahoo will also extend its search ambitions beyond e-mail, but integration of PC, Web and e-mail searches is where the market is leading, according to Gartenberg.
He added, however, that the challenge is to make the integration seamless.