Late yesterday, the Financial Times reported that SwiftKey was in talks with Microsoft about a potential acquisition that could be officially announced during the week. The report was right and this morning both Microsoft and SwiftKey have made the news official on their respective blogs.

The financial details of the acquisition weren't disclosed, but yesterday's report mentioned a $250 Million figure — or about a quarter Instagram if you want. The rest of the deal's terms aren't perfectly transparent either, but SwiftKey's co-founders Jon and Ben made it clear that the keyboard will continue to be developed for Android and iOS.

Our number one focus has always been to build the best possible products for our users. This will not change. Our apps will continue to be available on Android and iOS, for free. We are as committed as ever to improving them in new and innovative ways.

Microsoft's Executive VP of Technology and Research Harry Chum reiterated this point and explained how SwiftKey's technology could be beneficial both in improving Microsoft's own Word Flow on Windows and in helping the company's ventures in developing intelligent systems.

We’ll continue to develop SwiftKey’s market-leading keyboard apps for Android and iOS as well as explore scenarios for the integration of the core technology across the breadth of our product and services portfolio.

This acquisition lines up with Microsoft's efforts to grab talented developers from across a breadth of domains and services, like 6Wunderkinder (the makers of Wunderlist) and Sunrise Calendar, though it looks that SwiftKey's brand might have a better chance at surviving than the latter.

Source: Official Microsoft Blog, SwiftKey Blog