NewsGator Acquires NetNewsWire

Unlike the previous rumor I mentioned, this one turns out to be true: NewsGator has acquired NetNewsWire, the leading RSS reader for the Mac. Brent Simmons, NetNewsWire’s creator, has joined us as a product architect.

The addition of NetNewsWire extends NewsGator’s reach to the Mac desktop, enabling synchronization between Windows, the Web, mobile devices and now the Mac.

I’m very excited to be able to work with Brent – he’s a developer I really respect and admire, and we’ve had a number of great email conversations over the past few years. In fact, the first time I emailed Brent, I mentioned that whenever someone asked for a Mac version of FeedDemon, I’d point them to NetNewsWire. He replied that he did the same thing – he pointed Windows users to FeedDemon! More recently we both admitted to copying features from each other, so it’s nice that we can now do this without the guilt :)

Brent, let me officially welcome you on board – I really look forward to working with you.

Update: Here’s what Brent has to say about the acquisition, and here’s Greg Reinacker’s take.

Update 2: JB Holston and Brad Feld give their views on the acquisition.

14 thoughts on “NewsGator Acquires NetNewsWire

  1. I’ve always used NNW when on my mum’s mac, it’s nice to see the two best desktop aggregators have joined forces to make life better for us all :)

  2. NewsGator Buys NetNewsWire from Ranchero, Gets Brent Too

    I first saw a story about this on Jim’s Have Browser, Will Travel , and was quite surprised. Ranchero Software (Brent and Sheila Simmons) has sold NetNewsWire to NewsGator (one of the ‘big dogs’ in the RSS world). The Q & A at NewsGator’s site answers …

  3. NewsGator Acquires NetNewsWire

    NewsGator announced today that it has acquired NetNewsWire, the most popular Mac-based RSS reader. Many of the folks involved, including Brent Simmons (NetNewsWire), Greg Reinacker (NewsGator CTO / founder), Nick Bradbury (FeedDemon creator &ndas…

  4. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me that we will get NetNewsWire free.
    I have just bought a mac (arives tomorrow!) and will be selling my laptop (so no Windows = no FeedDemon).
    Will I be able to use NetNewsWire on my mac as I can no longer use FeedDemon? I really hope he answer is yes :)

  5. Hot damn, I had secretly been hoping for something like this to happen. Things are starting to look really interesting for us OS X/Windows hybrid users.

  6. NewsGator’s complete RSS platform

    The top RSS readers for Windows and Mac were both single developer efforts until recently. NewsGator acquired FeedDemon, the client I use on Windows, a few months ago and as…

  7. NewsGator’s complete RSS platform

    The top RSS readers for Windows and Mac were both single developer efforts until recently. NewsGator acquired FeedDemon, the client I use on Windows, a few months ago and as…

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