Zendesk acquires conversational platform Smooch

Customer service software provider Zendesk revealed that it has acquired Montreal based Smooch the company behind an eponymous business-to-customer messaging platform, for an undisclosed sum. Zendesk also took the wraps off WhatsApp and Slack integrations and announced new apps available through its Zendesk Marketplace.

For the uninitiated, Smooch’s AWS-hosted suite collates messages across web, mobile, and social messaging and combines user activity and existing profile data, enabling admins to create more tailored experiences. With Smooch’s embeddable software development kit and APIs for Android, iOS, and the web, a hotel, for instance, could give guests the ability to ping staff on-property, and an online retailer could manage issues like incorrect shipments and returns across channels.

Smooch supports speech on popular voice assistants, like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant, along with text on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Line, WeChat, Telegram, Twitter DM, Viber, Kakao Talk, SMS, and Rich Communication Services (RCS). Zendesk notes that Smooch has the distinction of being one of the largest providers of WhatsApp Business integration, which allows organizations to manage and send non-promotional automated messages to customers — like appointment reminders, shipping info, or event tickets — for a fixed rate.

Thanks to Smooch, Zendesk says that customers in its early access program can now reach users directly through Chat, its live chat solution for mobile and the web. Smooch brings real-time push notifications, as well as standard messaging features, like typing indicators, timestamps, cloud message storage, media support (for emojis, GIFs, images, videos, and file attachments), and read and delivery receipts.

Truecaller acquires Chillr

Sweden’s Truecaller started out life as a service that screen calls and messages to weed out spammers. In recent time the company has switched its focus to India, its largest market based on users, adding services that include payments to make it more useful. Now Truecaller is putting even more weight behind its India push after it announced its first acquisition, mobile payment service Chillr.

The vision is to go deeper into mobile payments and associated services to turn Truecaller into a utility that goes beyond just handling messages and calls, particularly payments — a space that WhatsApp is preparing to enter in India. Truecaller doesn’t have WhatsApp - like scale — few companies can match 200 million active users in India, but it did recently disclose that it has 100 million daily active users worldwide, while India is its largest country with 150 million registered users.

Truecaller has raised over $90 million from investors to date. Truecaller has instead raised capital from Swedish investment firm Zenith. Chillr, which offer payment services between over 50 banks, had raised $7.5 million from the likes of Blume Ventures and Sequoia Capital. The development of the service in India has made it look from the outside that the company is splitting into two, a product localized for India and another for the rest of the world.

Lycos Internet to acquire TriTelA Gmbh

Digital Marketing Firm Lycos Internet Ltd will acquire 100% stake in Austria based mobile solutions provider TriTelA Gmbh in an all-stock transaction giving it access to cloud based technology that can help broaden its consumer services.

The deal will give Lycos access to TriTelA ‘mysms’ messenger that synchronizes test messages (SMS) and instant messages across different devices (mobile phones, tablets and desktops) through a cloud based account MySMS, available on Android Play and Apple store, has 3 million users worldwide and synchronizes 100 Million messages a day.

MySMS cloud based framework can tie multiple nodes such as SMS, instant messaging, wearable technology, connected ear and smart appliances with the consumer through multiple devices, smartphones, tablets, laptops and over-the-top (OTT) content. Lycos owns community and social sites in 120 languages in 177 countries including search engine Lycos.com. Last year, it launched two fitness bands under its newly launched Internet of Things based division called Lycos Life.

In the instant messenger space, it competes with the likes of Whatsapp, WeChat, Line, KakaoTalk, and Facebook Messenger that have millions of users. Lycos will also get to own two other assets of TriTelA as a result of this acquisition. SPH Wien is a content management and analytics platform for Video. Kika Social is a unified platform for social media listening, engagement and measurement. 

Hike Messenger acquires Zip Phone

Hike, the instant messaging (IM) app service from BSB (Bharti Softbank, a joint venture between Bharti Group and Japan’s Softbank), has acquired free voice calling app Zip phone from US based Thought Mechanics Inc for an undisclosed sum. This would also compete with Bharti Airtel own core mobile service. Hike is also competing with SMS service provided by Airtel among other cellular service providers. The venture, however, adds data service earnings to all mobile operators.

The move is expected to expand Hike’s product range in the Internet based communication space. This is the first acquisition by Hike, and is aimed at expanding its products range in the Internet based communication space. Launched by Anuj Jain, Zip Phone is a voice-calling app that can automatically detect one’s contacts, and intelligently routes the call through the Wi-Fi.

Founded by in July 2012 by Kavin Bharti, Hike is a peer-to-peer (P2P) messaging app that uses both data and SMS to deliver messages. Hike is one of the leading mobile apps based out of India with around 35 Million users. Close to 90 percent of its users are Indians aged below 25 years. One of the key features of Hike is that those who do not have Hike on their phones can still receive an Instant message as SMS. One can also respond to it but have to pay normal SMS charges for that.

 Hike is competing with a slew of IM apps that include Whatsapp, which claims to have around 70 Million users in India, besides Facebook Messenger, Viber, Google Talk, and Kakao talk from South Korea, Taiwan Cubie, and LoveByte from Singapore, China WeChat, Japan Line, and Nimbuzz in India. Smartphone makers have their own apps too, such as BlackBerry Ltd Messenger, Apple Inc iMessage, and Samsung Electronics ChatOn. Last September, Hike had secured $65 Million (Rs 400 cr) in funding from a group of overseas investors led by Tiger Global Management. 

IBM launches new Email service Verse

Last week IBM launched its new e-mail application for business that integrates social media and analytics to help organizations and employees increase productivity. The new email ‘IBM Verse’, which is a part of company’s strategy to shift from hardware services to cloud computing and data analytics, is the first application to come out from company‘s USD 100 Million investment in design innovation.

It is the first messaging system to feature ‘faceted search’. Adding this will enable users to pinpoint and retrieve specific information they are seeking across all the various types of content within their email. Verse uses built-in analytics to provide an ‘at a glance’ view that intelligently surfaces an individual’s most critical actions for the day. Over time, it can provide instant context about a given project as well as the people and teams collaborating on it.

IBM verse gives enterprise customers, small businesses, and individuals a scalable, cloud based social collaboration environment optimized for mobile and web environments. The company has currently launched the beta version, while a freemium version – a model where basic version is free while features that are more elaborate need to be purchased will be available from the first quarter of next year.

IBM presently has 30,000 active support customers globally for its enterprise mail service named Notes. IT industry analysts estimate that 108 Billion work emails are sent daily, requiring employees to check their inboxes an average of 36 times an hour. It is also estimated that only 14% of those emails are of critical importance. Email will remain the single most widely used collaboration tool, with worldwide revenue for enterprise email expected to reach USD 4.7 Billion in 2017.

New Call Telecom acquired chat app Nimbuzz

New call Telecom is a young, dynamic telecommunication provider in UK. It was started in 2010. Recently, New Call Telecom acquired 70% stake in Mobile Instant Messaging and VoIP Company Nimbuzz for about $175 Million. Nimbuzz will now act as a unit of New Call Telecom. Nimbuzz had previously raised funding from Naspers and Mangrove Capital.

Founded in Netherlands by Evert Jaap Lugt in 2006, Nimbuzz shifted its corporate headquarters to Gurgaon in India a couple of years ago. It claims to have 201 Million subscribers in over 200 countries. In a month, the platform processes more than a billion voice-over-internet call minutes and in excess of 100 Billion besides operating one of the largest mobile advertising platforms in South Asia, Middle East, and North Africa regions.

The messenger claims it is the only multi-lingual solution provider, offering its service in more than 25 regional languages. It provides a single tool for making voice and peer-to-peer video calls, sending instant messages and sharing data via all major communications platforms. The company had earlier collaborated with Internet service provider Spectranet Hello IP to launch International-calling platforms for Indian users to make calls abroad for 1 paisa per second through this platform.

Last year Nimbuzz had entered a partnership with Cleartrip to enable travel bookings on its platform. Called the Cleartrip buddy, users can explore travel options as well as make bookings through it. On the app, users can do the preliminary search by adding basic information for their travel plans and for the actual transaction, they are led to a co-branded WAP page. New call will integrate the capabilities of the Nimbuzz platform along with a plethora of new apps with its Wi-Fi and home broadband service in India, and eventually in other parts of the world. Nimbuzz will also become an incubator for apps for New Call.

New Call is planning for more acquisitions in the Indian market in the fields of fixed line broadband, Wi-Fi, and e-commerce. This year, Facebook bought Whatsapp in Multi-billion dollar cash and stock deal while Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten bought messaging service Viber. Whatsapp dominates the Indian Messaging and chat app market and some of the other prominent players are Line, Tencent’s WeChat, and Bharti Softbank’s Hike.