• PC World et al., Thursday, February 18, 2010 1:01 PM

On Tuesday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt called mobile priority No. 1. Putting his money where is mouth is -- and within a 48 hour time span -- Schmidt has acquired reMail, a popular iPhone application that provides fast full-text search of your Gmail and IMAP email accounts.

"ReMail may not have been a household name, but the app received critical praise and had a small, but dedicated group of users," according to PC World.

TechCrunch's MG Siegler, meanwhile, suggests that Google may have snapped up reMail just to kill it -- not because reMail was a competitor to anything Google had, but because reMail made the iPhone better.

"I'm betting they're [Google] just as happy to kill off what is hands down one of the best email applications on the iPhone - much better than the iPhone's native email app," Siegler speculates.

The Register (UK) says it's "more likely some sort of improved local search for Android will emerge," admitting that, "perhaps Google is just planning to buy up all the iPhone developers, one at a time, until Android is the only game in town."

Either way, Schmidt is no doubt serious about mobile. Within three years, sales of smartphones will surpass sales of PCs, according to research cited by Schmidt at a conference on Tuesday. "The confluence of these three factors (computing, connectivity and the cloud) means your phone is your alter ego, an extension of everything we do," he told conference attendees.

Also, whether the acquisition was an offensive or defensive move on Google's part, "It's the latest maneuver in the titanic struggle for supremacy in the mobile landscape," concludes InformationWeek's Grok On Google blog. "It simply boils down to Google versus Apple."

ReMail is Google's third start-up acquisition in as many months. Last week, it announced it had acquired social search manager Aardvark. And in December, it sucked up collaboration toolmaker AppJet -- the company behind real-time collaboration online word processor EtherPad.

Also of note, GigaOm points out that all three startups -- AppJet, Aardvark and reMail -- were all founded by former Google employees.

"It certainly would have been more convenient for its HR department had Google managed to keep these people employed by offering them opportunities internally," writes GigaOm. "But then again you can't feel bad for a company with $24.5 billion cash on hand when it has to go out and spend a few mil to recruit from the office park down the road."

Read the whole story at PC World et al. »