Microsoft announced today that it had acquired Capptain, a Paris-based mobile analytics specialist, for an unspecified sum. Aimed at marketers, Capptain’s platform analyzes the behavior of mobile app users, segments those users, and pushes targeted and timely messages to foster greater levels of engagement and provide better customer service.
Real-time geofencing support allows customers to target users within a certain area. Organizations can further segment their user base according to device type, network connection type, app version and several other criteria.
Messages can be delivered using a mobile device’s built-in system notification scheme. Alternately, it can deliver in-app or in-site notifications using the company’s PUSH platform, which Capptain claims bypasses “Apple, Google or Microsoft’s servers” for high-speed message delivery.
The company’s Website claims that the tech “combines both into a powerful and real-time tool that reacts to user behavior in milliseconds to deliver the right message at the right time, creating engagement, and the feeling of being taken care of.”
Microsoft has bigger plans for Capptain.
“Capptain will bring a vital new element to our end-to-end story for mobile app development–real-time user and push analytics,” said Microsoft’s Omar Khan in a statement. “With Capptain’s solution, organizations can analyze customer and employee behavior in real-time, and respond by pushing targeted messages, announcements, information or offers.”
The key to engaging apps is tailored content. “This information empowers organizations to provide personalized, specific content to their customers in order to maximize business opportunities,” added Khan.
Capptain’s tech will be folded into Microsoft Azure’s growing cloud services slate, Khan said.
“We are hard at work integrating Capptain’s solution with the wider Microsoft Azure suite of services so that enterprises can not only build mobile apps to engage customers and employees, but also analyze and optimize that engagement,” he said. Until the integration is completed, Microsoft pledges to make Capptain’s offerings available to current and new customers.
The acquisition fits into Microsoft’s mobile-first, cloud-first strategy according to Khan. “Mobility, powered by the cloud, is how people are being more productive, more connected and more inspired every day. We are excited to welcome the Capptain team to Microsoft, and to Azure, to help us advance that future for all our customers,” he added.
The deal follows the software giant’s recent acquisition of GreenButton. On May 1, Microsoft announced that it had acquired the cloud high-performance computing specialist to democratize “the use of Big Compute through the power of the cloud,” said Mike Neil, a general manager in Microsoft’s Azure cloud division, in a statement.
Like Capptain, GreenButton’s tech will be used to give Microsoft’s cloud some added muscle.
Neil said his company is “working to integrate those solutions with the Microsoft Azure platform, enabling customers to simply and easily solve complex problems, get more from their data and drive their business forward.”