Microsoft announced its latest acquisition of the startup company LiveLoop which has successfully developed plugins for business products and PowerPoint. These plugins allow work collaboration through cloud networking among Powerpoint users. Other details about the acquisition are yet to be disclosed.
As a result of the acquisition, the startup began sending out a notification to users on its website that it will shut down on April 24. User activities such as new uploads and new registration would become permanently disabled on the site. The company advised users to back up all their works before the announced deadline since everything else will be deleted permanently on their servers.
The notice reads: "LiveLoop will be shutting down permanently on April 24th, 2015. New user registration and presentation upload have been disabled. On April 24th, all presentations and user data will be permanently deleted."
Microsoft said that using LiveLoop's technology will allow easier web access to PowerPoint in the near future. While it is true that a PowerPoint client is already available on the web, Microsoft wanted to produce something that is groundbreaking as far as usability is concerned.
At present, Microsoft has subscription-based services that provide access among Office users to files and documents across several devices. Users can collaborate with other users in the same network and exchange files where they are given full control on their work's visibility.
The latest acquisition is seen as a way to enhance the existing infrastructure with added functionalities and features. It is expected that major changes in the Office suite shall be achieved in the not so distant future.
"Microsoft is excited to welcome the talented team from LiveLoop to help build greater collaboration across Office applications, as part of our strategy and vision to reinvent productivity," said Microsoft.
LiveLoop, which was founded by David Nelson and Amal Dorai, provides web service that converts PowerPoint presentations into live URLs which users can share on any device and collaborate with other users in real time without the necessity to install the software. The company has received funding from venture capital firms which include Columbus Nova Technology Partners and New Enterprise Associates.
Microsoft has been on a shopping spree for the past few months as it acquires new talent and products that will help them push Office and other Microsoft products into a new age of mobile and Internet usage. In December, the company bought mobile email app Acompli which was later on integrated into Outlook for iOS in January. Last month, the company has acquired Sunrise, a mobile calendar application in a deal that is valued at about $100 million.
Photo: Amit Chattopadhyay I Flickr
