Beeper Took On Apple's iMessage Dominance. Now It's Been Acquired (wired.com) 28
Late last year the messaging app Beeper raised the ire of Apple when it found a way to recreate Apple's infamous "blue bubble" messaging on Android. Apple later hobbled Beeper, but it's not an entirely unhappy ending: The startup has been acquired in a deal valued at $125 million. From a report: Founded three years ago, Beeper is being snapped up by Automattic, the respected parent company of WordPress, the blogging and content management platform, as well as Tumblr, which it acquired in 2019. Beeper cofounder Eric Migicovsky said that the company will continue to exist as a stand-alone product within Automattic, and that all of Beeper's 27 employees -- who, like Automattic's employees, are entirely remote -- will be absorbed into the larger entity.
Exact financial terms of the acquisition weren't disclosed. According to Migicovsky, Beeper will be part of Automattic's broader strategy to offer more messaging features. Automattic first invested in Beeper in 2022, and late last year snatched up another messaging app, Texts, for $50 million. The acquisition comes on the heels of a highly publicized battle between Beeper and Apple, in which Beeper tried to bridge the gap between Android messaging and iMessage but was ultimately thwarted. It was unable to monetize its app and, with 30,000 users as of writing, hadn't reached critical mass.
Exact financial terms of the acquisition weren't disclosed. According to Migicovsky, Beeper will be part of Automattic's broader strategy to offer more messaging features. Automattic first invested in Beeper in 2022, and late last year snatched up another messaging app, Texts, for $50 million. The acquisition comes on the heels of a highly publicized battle between Beeper and Apple, in which Beeper tried to bridge the gap between Android messaging and iMessage but was ultimately thwarted. It was unable to monetize its app and, with 30,000 users as of writing, hadn't reached critical mass.
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moron, idiot, retard.
The Pkunk Fury has recharged its batteries. Expect another broadside pass!
Re: Embrace, extend, etc. (Score:2)
Well, this is the way (Score:1)
Probably to avoid their exploitation of messaging (Score:1)
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It's also a lot easier to just leave a comment and not even read the summary. They're being bought by Automattic, the respected parent company of WordPress. I copied and pasted that last part from the summary.
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It's good that the parent company is respected, as WordPress is disrespected universally.
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WordPress is so disrespected universally that the majority of website developers actively chose it over the alternatives.
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"It's much easier to buy out your competitors to stop people from using alternatives to their messaging system."
A bit, of that -- but a healthy dose of Eric Migicovsky learning from not taking a buyout offer of $700+ million for pebble to walking away with next to nothing a year or two later.
Steve Miller Band had it right... "Take the money and run".
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I guess you didn't read it either.
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Except I did -- which is why I posted what I posted. He didn't cling on to beeper like he did pebble, took a great offer and, at least for now, his staff remain employed. Like most acqs Migicovsky will likely depart in a year or two after everything transfers over to Automatic.
Don't get me wrong, I still have my main pebble watch and about 7 others I got at a firesale and they all still work. Loved pebble and would have like to have seen it continue -- but that just wasn't going to happen after other, mu
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It's much easier to buy out your competitors to stop people from using alternatives to their messaging system
You seem to be confused about who is buying out and who has a messaging system. And I wouldn't want to be the one having to explain to shareholders what benefits spending 125 million to buy out a competitor would have.
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Pffft. That's peanuts. You haven't really made it until you bankrupt three casinos [yahoo.com], two in one year!
Wow. A 125 megadollar sale (Score:2)
Beam me up Scotty, there's no intelligent life on this planet.
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Shut up and take my money!
Automattic keeps buying unprofitable companies (Score:3)
I wonder how long it'll be before we start seeing "helpful" sponsored ads in the Wordpress admin panel?
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You seems to be confused by the existence of both wordpress.com and wordpress.org. Also confused by ads from the core software and ads from some 3rd party plugins you can install. Spoiler: for some cases the answer is "it already happened", for other cases "never".
125 million? (Score:3)
For what? Their technology is useless. Their entire business is useless. There is nothing Automatic could have gained worth anywhere near that amount of money. I mean, the loss of that money isn't going to hurt them, but they aren't going to gain anything either.
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