Microsoft buys Ozzie start-up Talko
Communications app will help bolster its Skype functions
Microsoft said Monday it’s buying Talko, absorbing the Ray Ozzie-founded startup’s technology and employees to build out functionality on its Skype communication network.
Massachusetts-based Talko, a mobile app for consumer and business communications that launched in September 2014, creates multiperson conversations combining voice, text and photos in an evolving timeline. The app uses Voice Over Internet Protocol technology and was founded by Ozzie, the creator of Lotus Notes who later served as chief technology officer at Microsoft.
It’s the latest bite-sized acquisition for Microsoft, which is trying to shift its business model from one that’s focused on software license sales to one that makes money off its customers’ increased use of cloud services.
Last month, Microsoft announced Skype for Business, an enterprise-focused version of the video-and-voice messaging platform it bought in 2011 for $8.5 billion. The idea is to provide users of Office365 with an all-inone communications solution, thereby capturing a market that previously went to larger telecom providers.
A post on Microsoft’s blog by Gurdeep Singh Pall, Skype’s corporate vice president, said Talko will enhance the way family members stay in touch or build on Skype for Business services within Office 365. Microsoft didn’t disclose terms.
Far from simply being Ozzie’s former employer from 2005 to 2010, Microsoft is proving to be a patron of the programmer’s elevated computer arts. A decade ago, Microsoft purchased Groove Networks, another Ozzie take on network communications tools. That technology made its way into Microsoft’s SharePoint and OneDrive platforms.
Talko boasts a multidimensional aspect to the communications process, which typically is bifurcated between text and voice/video. Typical of a popular new enterprise platform is Slack, which allows employees to form teams and archives conversation threads. With Talko, conversations can include texts and photos, as well as audio conversations, all in the same stream.
Ozzie demonstrated his thennew technology for USA TODAY in 2014, showing off how an archived company meeting that included messages, slides and conversations could be reviewed later by someone who had missed the conversation. Similarly, he showed how his extended family was keeping tabs on the progress of one family member’s new puppy in an array of videos and texts.
“I asked myself, ‘ What if the Net had come before the phone: How would voice be woven into our online experience?’ ” Ozzie, now 60, told USA TODAY. (He founded the company with Erik Patey and Matt Pope.) “The answer to that question is Talko.”
Pope noted at the time the issue with text-only messaging is the possibility for user error. “Plus, there is a complete lack of emotional context in texting. (Then) add the simple fact that texting requires you to be always looking down at your phone, usually while you’re walking.”