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Microsoft has acquired technology assets from Brisbane startup
Event Zero in order to boost the capabilities of its Skype for Business product. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The tech acquired by Microsoft is that underlying Event Zero's UC Commander product suite, which provides management and reporting tools for the cloud version of Skype for Business; with the acquisition, Microsoft said the technology will be integrated directly into the Skype for Business platform.
David Tucker, CEO of Event Zero, wrote in a blog post that Microsoft was a "logical partner" for the company's technology.
"I see the purchase benefiting more Skype for Business customers than Event Zero could possibly reach,” he wrote.
Zig Serafin, corporate vice president of Skype for Business Engineering, explained in a blog post that the acquisition will allow Microsoft to expand and improve built-in management tools for the product.
"Our goal is to make the Skype for Business management tools as powerful and easy-to-use for IT professionals as Skype is for end users. Today, customers of our calling and conferencing services can use the Office 365 administration centre to acquire and assign phone numbers to their users in minutes, view reports of audio and video conferencing usage, and quickly access aggregated call quality information using our Call Quality Dashboard," he wrote.
"In the future, using the technology acquired today, we will be able to add strong diagnostics and troubleshooting capabilities with even more extensive reporting and analytics for online audio, video conferencing and media streams — all within a unified management and admin system."
This is Microsoft's first acquisition of the year, with the last of 2015 coming in late December when Microsoft acquired data analytics company Metanautix in order to help give enterprise customers a unified view of all of their data across cloud and on-premises systems.
Meanwhile, Event Zero said it will continue to support its existing customers as they migrate to Microsoft's offering. Founded in 2005, the startup counts at&t, Accenture, and Kellogg's among its clients.
Just two weeks into the year, 2016 has already seen a number of Australian startups gain significant interest from global giants. Sydney travel startup Booking Boss
last week announced a partnership with Expedia that will help connect tour operators and trade distributors more efficiently, while Melbourne startup Locomote
yesterday announced a partnership with Allianz Global Assistance that will see its corporate travel platform integrated with Allianz travel insurance services to provide corporate travellers with protection while on the road.
Image: Zig Serafin. Source: enterpriseconnect.
