In what has to be more about intellectual property and gap filling, and a bit of an acquihire in nature, 8x8 has acquired Jitsi from Atlassian. You'll recall how HipChat was sold off to Slack a few months ago, so this seems to be the next step in trimming non-core assets by the Australian company as they focus.
It's a good move for 8x8 as it gives them a proven team and access to technology that is mostly built upon WebRTC for their Meetings product as this will help shore up the 8x8 Meetings product, and also provide some additional technology talent that is more web than telco centric to the company. With collaboration becoming so much a part of any telco's business model, and the need to integrate with third party cloud services, the pick up of Jitsi is a shrewd move.
This purchase also shows how open source technology can be used to build valuable assets as this marks the second time Jitsi has been acquired. Their status and life expectancy was one of my questions at ClueCon which I pondered with others when Slack picked up HipChat as I figured Jitsi's time was limited at Atlassian. I'm now as doubtful that this was an expensive acquisition, as the terms were not disclosed making it a non-material purchase by 8x8, and not subject to SEC reporting requirements. We call those kinds of sales, mercy sales, where the company's assets and team are placed in a good home, where the technology and team can be appreciated.
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