Messaging app Wire partners with EY
A messaging app is a messaging app, and it is very hard to beat WhatsApp on that front. End-to-end encryption is no longer a USP, it's a feature without which apps will not be able to gain market share.
It’s very hard to monetise [Wire] on the consumer market.Morten Brøgger, CEO of Wire
It's almost a nonsensical business decision for messaging apps to come after WhatsApp. But messaging services are the future. So Wire, another end-to-end encrypted messaging app has ventured into new territory—B2B services.
Wire has partnered with EY, an accounting and consulting company, to provide them with and on-premise version of its messaging service.
With this new venture, Wire will be competing with Slack, another team collaboration software that allows users to send messages to each other.
By charging €4 to €6 or user, Wire's software as a service approach also helps it monetise it's services in a direct fashion, unlike WhatsApp.
Around 600 companies are using this solution across a wide range of industries, from cybersecurity to M&A firms. They share confidential data so Slack is not an option.TechCrunch
Wire is now going one step further by providing on-premise deployment and custom integrations. EY wanted an end-to-end messaging service to share messages and files with customers. And the company wanted to control the servers in-house.
“Comparing with some other solutions, when you dig into the technology, sometimes you discover that messages are encrypted and not attachments. With Wire, everything has the same level of encryption,”Yannick de Kerhor, EY France Chief Digital Officer
Tapping into the B2B market is a smart move from Wire. We are curious to see if WhatsApp will eventually follow Wire and Slack into this territory. However, because businesses are particular about confidentiality, Zuckerberg-owned WhatsApp may face serious hurdles on that front.
