Today at the Office 365 Summit, Microsoft gave us a sneak peak at some of the new and improved features that Skype for Business will bring to enterprises. It is believed in some circles that Facebook didn’t actually buy WhatsApp for money but instead purchased the app to access user’s behaviour data and gain access to personal information.How Skype for Business Differs from Lync 2013 (or not) That means looking at getting banks and airlines to message you via WhatsApp over transactions. The app now has more than one billion users worldwide according to figures released last year. Nowadays the app appears to be focused primarily on growth, while making money from selling the software and services, according to a blog post by the messaging service. However the app drop subscription payments at the beginning of 2016. The chat service has so far avoided in-app adverts as this could get annoying for its users – plus the previous owners left Yahoo over work relating to selling ads. In some countries it cost $1 a year and others the first year was free and each subsequent year for $1. Initially WhatsApp made money by being a pay-for app. Good job WhatsApp (Picture: Getty Images/Metro) They got working on an app and when Apple introduced push notifications they found that their statuses were sent to all their friends. They went travelling for a year in South America and when they came back, Koum, who was originally from the Ukraine but moved to the States as a 16-year-old, bought himself an iPhone.Īpple had launched its App store and the pair realised this was the start of a whole new industry.

The pair both worked at Yahoo but left when they became disillusioned with where the company was heading. WhatsApp was founded by Jan Koum and Brian Acton in 2009. Facebook had also failed to purchase SnapChat a year earlier.Īt the time, WhatsApp had more than 400 million users around the world. The purchase came with some controversy as many who had specifically avoided signing up to the social media giant found themselves inadvertently giving up their details though WhatsApp anyway.

But it wasn’t always that way. Facebook snapped up the messaging service for $19 billion in 2014, just as it was trying to convince investors it had a decent plan for mobile.

Who owns skype for business