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Microsoft Boosts Its Chatbot Future By Acquiring Wand Labs (fastcompany.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the thing-Microsoft-buys dept.

Harry McCracken, reporting for Fast Company: On Monday, Microsoft made headlines by plunking down $26 billion for LinkedIn. Now it's announcing its second acquisition of the week: For an undisclosed sum, the company has bought Wand Labs, a Silicon Valley-based startup that declares its mission is "to tear down app walls, integrate your services in chat, and make them work together so you can do more with less taps." Founded in 2013, Wand is tiny -- it has just seven employees -- and, though no longer in stealth mode, is hardly a household name. The iOS and Android apps it built haven't yet reached general availability, and now they never will, as their creators put them aside and contribute to the greater Microsoftian effort.Wand Labs' purchase marks Microsoft's 197th acquisition of another company.

27 comments

  1. My wand is the longest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    its so long, hard and juicy. Wanna suck on it?

    1. Re: My wand is the longest by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm a Slashdot user so...yes, yes I would.

  2. Why buy chatbots? by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1

    I was under the impression Microsoft is lightyears ahead of its competitors in TrollChatBot, TrashTalkBot technologies...

    --
    sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    1. Re:Why buy chatbots? by mfh · · Score: 2

      No, Ballmer left.

      I'll see myself out.

      --
      The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
    2. Re:Why buy chatbots? by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 2

      Now it'll be even better at making Nazi references while harassing you to join its professional network on LinkedIn.

    3. Re:Why buy chatbots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft's management just tries to show outsiders that their recent failures at chatbots was caused by incompetent engineers at their side. In practice they replaced the engineers and will fail again, as the dumb-ass management which spent shit load of company money to save their own asses stays.

    4. Re:Why buy chatbots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know what you're implying, but the sad reality is that Microsoft doesn't need to use bots or shills.

      It's the Linux community itself that's doing pretty much all of the harm to Linux today.

      There are so many alienated Linux users today. They were alienated by having unwanted software like systemd and GNOME 3 forced on them by all of the major distros.

      After having been dedicated Debian users for many years, the answer is not to tell these people to just use Slackware, Gentoo, or some other niche distro. Even Devuan isn't an option because it's still a niche distro, too. Telling them to use those distros is the same as telling them to "fuck off and die".

      Yes, these users are angry with how Linux is being destroyed. Yes, they're pointing this out online.

      Are they being compensated by Microsoft? Nope! Microsoft doesn't have to pay them anything. They're expressing their anger, and this is being done without any involvement of external parties.

      Are they bots created by Microsoft? Nope! These are real people who have had Linux they knew and loved brutally torn away from them, with shit like systemd and GNOME 3 shoved into their wounds.

      The Linux community is destroying itself, but it doesn't even seem to realize it! The ones responsible for this destruction are so oblivious to what they're doing that they're blaming non-existent "shills" and "bots" for the dissent and anger that the wider Linux community is expressing!

      Microsoft doesn't have to do anything now but sit and wait as the Linux community implodes. The best Linux users have moved or are moving to FreeBSD and/or OS X. Linux does have a lot of momentum in the short term, but Linux's long term future is looking bleaker than it ever has before. Any software projects that lose their best users, who often are also the best contributors, may not fail right away, but they will in the long run.

      Linux is fast on its way to becoming another Firefox or GNOME 3 sort of project, where past success is no indication of future success. And it's not Microsoft or any external party responsible for this: it's the Linux community that did this to itself!

    5. Re:Why buy chatbots? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lmao, you simpleton one system people amuse me

  3. Warning: Manager Speak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    to tear down app walls, integrate your services in chat, and make them work together so you can do more with less taps.

    I have no idea what this means, but I'm sure it can enhance the synergism of my enterprise.

  4. 26 BILLION Dollars! by headkase · · Score: 1

    I still can't believe they spent 26 BILLION dollars on Linkedin. Like seriously, whatever they're smoking I want some too. That amount of money is so astronomical that even if they blew the budget by 10 times they could have seriously built their own Linkedin 5 times over. Whoever approved that dollar figure is fucking insane, stupid, trying to sink the company, or all of the above.

    --
    Shh.
    1. Re:26 BILLION Dollars! by H3lldr0p · · Score: 1

      I've been thinking about this and I have to wonder if it isn't a way for Microsoft to repatriate some of their overseas cash in a way that doesn't hit many of the tax pitfalls that a straight up transfer would.

      Why else do it in all cash? To me a stock swap make more sense, from a perspective of a shareholder of Microsoft or of LinkedIn. Any VCs still hanging onto their LI shares now have ones that they can immediately cashout without having to file a huge pile of paperwork or they can hang onto the shares for future projects. The MS stockholders can still pressure the board to give another dividend.

      Otherwise it seems weird that such a astronomically huge amount of cash went to a company that was being valued at a fraction of it.

    2. Re:26 BILLION Dollars! by ketomax · · Score: 1

      Essentially they are paying for the community of users that will come along with it. Building your own platform doesn't guarantee you will have users. Just look at Windows Phone.

    3. Re:26 BILLION Dollars! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Linked in is not a social platform. If Microsoft tries to make it one it will fail badly.

    4. Re:26 BILLION Dollars! by Thud457 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      soon, on XBox chat :

      13YOnAziPEdo : plz add me to your linkedin profile faggot

      --

      the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

    5. Re: 26 BILLION Dollars! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Does that mean we can start to expect cat videos on LinkedIn? Everyone knows you need cat videos to survive. It's been proven by science.

    6. Re:26 BILLION Dollars! by gtall · · Score: 1

      Surely the tax hit would be less than the dog's breakfast MS will make of LI. Overvaluing LI means they cannot easily unload it except in a fire sale.

      The only explanation that makes sense to me is one some industry wag mentioned: MS was scared Google or Apple would get LI and know what to do with it. MS never really understood the social media wave, they do not have any inkling on how it interacts with mobile devices since they never got those either. One presumes LI knows what they are doing in social media but I have my doubts. MS did say they were going to keep LI's management structure in place, but that won't last long once the fiefdoms in MS start looking at LI as a "resource".

    7. Re:26 BILLION Dollars! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The MS' management team must get their cut for each dollar they spend on corporate acquisitions. They simply can not be that stupid that they would buy a website for 26 billion, but corruption would explain that kind of deal easily.

    8. Re:26 BILLION Dollars! by UnknowingFool · · Score: 2

      Well considering how poorly MS has integrated good companies like Skype and Danger, I don't doubt LinkedIn would follow the fame fate as aQuantive. While Ballmer might have left the company his penchant of simply buying a new flavor of month company hasn't left.

      --
      Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
  5. engine neer'd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    trying to trick you to say something

  6. Ms comic chat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please bring back the irc client from 1996.

  7. Excellent! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As a Slashdot user in my moms basement, my skype contact list is empty. Now I can practice cybersexting with my new virtual friends.

    Robe and wizard hat, get ready for some action!

    1. Re:Excellent! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      how does one access robe vision

    2. Re:Excellent! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's hope the chatbot has no memory, otherwise it will report your ISP and say you were sending it kiddie porn.

  8. Same cronie networking.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only now it's publicly official with regard to finances. Can anybody not see how corporations are networking and spying on the average person?

    1. Re:Same cronie networking.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If Apple wasn't in bed with China they would have immediately opened the San Bernadino iphone for the FBI.

  9. The word is 'fewer' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fewer taps.

  10. Confused Less & Fewer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "...do more with less taps..." should read "...do more with fewer taps..."