David Ku, Corporate Vice President of the platform information group, announced Microsoft had acquired Wand Labs, a company that specializes in messaging apps. The strategic purchase forms part of the company’s new project that wants to establish conversation as a platform.

The first time the company talked about their plans was at its Build Conference 2016 in March where Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, introduced the “conversation platform”.

The idea is to allow people to interact with information in a more direct way. It also looks to improve the actual methods of communication between users and in this regard, Wand can prove very useful.

Microsoft's latest addition Wand Labs and LinkedIn could be a significant factor on the current powerhouse battle between Sillycon Valley enterprises. Image Credit: Digital Trends
Microsoft’s latest addition Wand Labs and LinkedIn could be a significant factor in the current powerhouse battle between Silicon Valley enterprises. Image Credit: Digital Trends

The company has been working on messaging apps and on-line communications in general, and Microsoft will use its expertise further to improve its Bing projects such as the chat-bot. Moreover, the idea of making connections faster and safer is going to make projects like Azure and Office 365 much more attractive.

A lot of companies around the world understand the benefits of having a reliable communication infrastructure within their businesses, and Microsoft has been providing that with Office 365. If they manage to break some communication barriers, make it safer and quicker, it will lure more users that don´t like working with big ERPs.

There are no further details on the deal. Mr. Ku just announced the acquisition, but he did not talk about how much the company paid or what was going to be the interaction between the two organizations.

The company is tackling the corporate word

The North American company is spending big money on building their chat-centric platform. The company is going to pay $26.2 billion to put its hands on Linkedin. Jennifer Chen, from the Microsoft News Center Staff, announced both companies had agreed to the terms of the acquisition last Monday, and it sounds like a pretty good deal for the people behind the corporate social media.

Besides Wand Labs, Microsoft is algo going to pay $26.2 billion to put its hands on Linkedin. Image Credit: Surface Phone
Besides Wand Labs, Microsoft is also going to pay $26.2 billion to put its hands on Linkedin. Image Credit: Surface Phone

Linkedin will retain everything, its logo, its staff, and freedom, in fact, they will continue working as usual. The only difference is that, now, they will have to report to Mr. Satya Nadella, and he paid a lot to get that right, $196 per share. The transaction is expected to happen before the fiscal year is over.

It seems the trend among the big tech companies is to buy whatever they need. Samsung did it with Joyent, and now Microsoft brings its brand a couple of big businesses that have been working on what they need, social communications on-line.

After seeing what the company did at the E3, bringing their console and PC users under one roof, it would be safe to expect vast improvements on their existent catalog of services for companies. For instance, Azure is Microsoft’s option in the ERP market against titans like SAP and Oracle. By taking advantage of the possible client database that Linkedin might have, Dynamics would probably become the favorite software for business people that favor effective methods of marketing.

Also, Mr. Ku says that what Wand Labs brings to the table could finally make the Bing project take off. All in all, it seems 2016 is an investment year for Mr. Gates’ organization.

Source: Microsoft Blog