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WordPress.com owner Automattic is acquiringBeeper , the company behindthe iMessage - on - Android solutionthat wasreferenced by the Department of Justicein its antimonopoly cause against Apple . The deal , which was for $ 125 million consort to sources close to the matter , is Automattic ’s second acquisition of a cross - platform message solution afterbuying Texts.comlast October .
That acquirement made Texts.com founder Kishan Bagaria Automattic ’s new headway of Messaging , a role that will now be defy by Beeper founderEric Migicovsky , antecedently the founder of the Pebble smartwatch and a Y Combinator pardner .
Reached for scuttlebutt , Automattic sound out it has started the process of onboarding the Beeper team and is “ excited about the progress made ” so far but could n’t yet partake in more about its organizational update , or what Bagaria ’s new form of address would be . However , we ’re told he is staying to work on Beeper as well .
Beeper and Texts.com ’s teams of 25 and 15 , respectively , will connect together to take the best of each company ’s product and merge it into one platform , according to Migicovsky .
“ [ Texts.com ] build an amazing app that ’s more desktop - centrical and iOS - centric , ” he said . “ So we ’ll be folding the best parts of those into our app . But going forward , the Beeper steel will apply to all of the message efforts at Automattic , ” he said , adding , “ Kishan … I ’ve jazz him for years now — there ’s not too many other people in the human race that are doing what we do — and it was neat to be capable to combine force with them . ”
The deal , which closed on April 1 , represent a crowing bet from Automattic : that the future of messaging will be open informant and will work across services , alternatively of being link up up in proprietary platforms , like Meta ’s WhatsApp or Apple ’s iMessage . In fact , Migicovsky says , the eventual architectural plan after shifting people to the Beeper cross - platform app for make out their content is to move them to Beeper ’s own chat communications protocol — something base on the open germ protocol called Matrix .
Automattic had antecedently made astrategic investment funds of $ 4.6 millioninElement(previously New Vector ) , another ship’s company building on Matrix , and it lend per annum to Matrix.org , as does Beeper .
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Matrix , a sort of “ unearthly successor ” to XMPP , as Migicovsky describes it , offer an open source , end - to - end inscribe client and server communication system , where servers can federate with one another , standardized to open up source Twitter / X alternativeMastodon . However , instead of focus on societal networking , like Mastodon , it focuses on message .
Migicovsky said the learning came about because run Beeper costs quite a turn of money and it was either clock time to raise more funding or find a emptor . To particular date , Beeper had raised $ 16 million in outdoor funding , include an $ 8 million Series A from Initialized . Other investor include YC , Samsung Next , and Liquid2 Ventures , and angels Garry Tan , Kevin Mahaffey , and Niv Dror , and the group SV Angel .
“ I ’ve known Matt [ Mullenweg , Automattic founding father and CEO ] for old age now , ” Migicovsky said , adding that the WordPress.com father had exhibit commitment to open up source technology , like Beeper , where about half its Cartesian product is already undetermined source . “ We were attend to encounter a partner that could financially support this . One of the reasons why there are no other masses build this eccentric of app is it costs a astonishingly magnanimous amount of money to build a damn good schmoose app , ” Migicovsky notice .
As for Beeper ’s products , the company has now brief the DOJ on what happened whenApple blockedits newer app , Beeper Mini , which aim to bring iMessage to Android . That resolution isno longer being updatedas a result of Apple ’s move .
Beeper on Android launches to all
The fellowship is instead releasing an updated version ofits core app , Beeper , on Android . Unlike Beeper Mini , which focuses only on iMessage , the principal app connects with 14 services , including Messenger , WhatsApp , Telegram , Signal , Instagram DM , LinkedIn , Twitter / X , Discord , Google Messages and others . Android is its biggest political program by user , as 70 % are on Google ’s smartphone OS .
In this rewritten version of Beeper , the company is depart to roll out full end - to - end encrypted substance across Signal . That will be presently watch over by WhatsApp , Messenger and Google Messages .
Because of Apple ’s restrictions , iMessage only work if you have an iPhone in the admixture , Migicovsky says , and will not be a focussing for Beeper , given the complication it see with Apple ’s shutdown of Beeper Mini . However , Beeper is hopeful regulations could modify thing , pointing to the DOJ lawsuit andFCC probe . In the meantime , Beeper supportsRCS , which solves iMessage to Android problems like low - reticuloendothelial system images and video , lack of typing index and encryption .
With the launching out of beta , the new app includes a new icon , update design , instant schmooze open up and sends , the power to add and change Old World chat networks directly on Android ( no background app needed ) , local caching of all chats on the machine and full substance hunt .
The 10,000 Android beta testers already on Beeper will involve to download the young app manually fromGoogle gaming — it wo n’t mechanically update .
In addition , the 466,000 or so mass on Beeper ’s waitlist will now be ableto try the production . They’ll fall in over 115,000 users who have already downloaded the app , which is now used by tens of thou day by day . The app run on Android , iPhone , iPad , ChromeOS , macOS , Windows and Linux .
The team expects to have feature parity across platforms in a issue of months as they overtake the iOS and screen background apps .
In time , they be after to add other avail to Beeper as well , include Google Voice , Snapchat and Microsoft Teams . Beeper also offers a widget API so developers can work up on top of Beeper . Plus , since Matrix is an open criterion , developers will be able-bodied to build alternative clients for Beeper , as well .
The app will father revenue via a premium subscription , where the concluding price may be a couple of dollars per calendar month , but pricing decisions have n’t yet been fully nailed down . Beeper is currently devoid to use .
Like Automattic , Beeper ’s team is remotely distributed , with employees in Brazil , the U.K. , Germany and the U.S. At nowadays , Texts.com will extend to manoeuver as the teams begin to incorporate the two message apps .
DOJ calls out Apple for breaking iMessage - on - Android resolution , Beeper
FCC commissioner push to investigate Apple ’s decision to block Beeper Mini
Updated 4/9/24 , 5:05 premier ET to clarify that Beeper ’s chat protocol is ground on Matrix .
