Amazon quietly acquired Biba; may launch video messaging app

Amazon is known for testing waters in various segments, and so the news about the company’s plans on a video messaging app won’t surprise many. According to Techcrunch, Amazon had quietly acquired a San Francisco-based startup called Biba Systems last year. The startup is known to develop as well as operate video messaging apps for business users further fuel add fuel to the video messaging rumour. Citing people familiar with the matter, the news report claims that the company plans to pull the wraps off its video messaging service during the re:Invent AWS conference later this month. Amazon has been tight lipped about the acquisition, so far. The report further talks about findings that Biba had filed and received two patents – one related to video conferencing and another to audio streaming. The report adds that both transferred the ownership to Amazon technologies in the last couple of months. “Such a move might make it more competitive against the likes of Microsoft, which rivals AWS with Azure and its own extensive range of enterprise software. It has updated its own video conferencing product, Skype, to make it more business-friendly,” points out the Techcrunch report. So, obviously this also raises questions about Amazon looking to go deeper into enterprise software.