An encrypted messaging app Wickr has been acquired by e-commerce giant Amazon

An encrypted messaging app Wickr has been acquired by e-commerce giant Amazon

Wickr, an encrypted messenger has been bought by e-commerce giant Amazon. Interestingly, the agreement between the two is still not unveiled. Therefore, the deal is not disclosed by any of them. According to the vice president of Amazon Web Services, commonly known as AWS, Stephen Schmidt has written in a blog post that they were desperate to acquire an encrypted messaging app like Wickr to enter the business of communication technology.

To recall, Wickr, the encrypted messaging app was developed in 2012 and since then it has been used by many security agencies of the US. Wickr is also considered the competitor of Elon Musk’s favourite messaging app, Signal. Furthermore, the company has ever-deepening relationships with the military, and Washington in general, according to the sources.  Also, Wickr gives security-conscious enterprises and government agencies, including NSA, the ability to implement important governance and security controls to help them meet their requirements.

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Amazon claimed that acquiring Wickr was also influenced or backed by the current working scenario i.e. work from home (WFH). As most of their workers are currently working from their homes amid the Covid-19 pandemic, so the company wanted to secure and control its information. With the help of this app, the employees of the e-commerce giant will be connected through it and the company will have an eye on its workers. Notably, enterprises and government agencies have a growing desire to protect and control their communications and information.

However, it’s unclear whether this is part of the company’s effort to build out more services to flesh out its offerings, or simply it’s a sign that it will continue to target that market of communication. Moreover, the company didn’t hesitate that if it has JEDI in its pocket or not. The analysts also suggest that this might be the planning or the first step or baby step of Amazon to enter into the field of communication. Meanwhile, some analysts or experts also considered a long-awaited step by the company.

Currently, the AWS division offers communications services of Chime which offers organizations to meet, chat, and place business calls to one another like other meeting apps and tools. But these services do not focus on end-to-end encryption as Wickr does. As per the reports, Amazon had been working on the messaging product since 2017. Although the end product has been ended as a result of Wickr.