Today, collaborating with others on an important presentation for a business audience
usually requires lengthy email strings with countless PowerPoint
attachments and a cumbersome revision process. Microsoft’s recent
acquisition of a startup called LiveLoop could change all that for the
better.LiveLoop, up until now a small San Francisco-based startup, built a PowerPoint plugin enabling groups to work on a single presentation together in real time via the Web. Or as its website puts it, LiveLoop’s service “converts presentations into Web URLs that can be viewed from any computer or phone *without* installing any software,” such as GoToMeeting, WebEx or join.me.
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“Microsoft is excited to welcome the talented team from LiveLoop to help build great collaboration across Office applications, as part of our strategy and vision to reinvent productivity,” according to a company statement.
The terms of the acquisition, reported by ZDNet, have not been disclosed. LiveLoop is displaying a prominent notice at the top of its home
page notifying visitors that the company will shut down on April 24,
and that new user registrations and presentation uploads have been
disabled. The company has already shuttered its Twitter, Facebook and
LinkedIn accounts.Related: Microsoft announces Surface Hub, a massive touch-enabled TV for productivity
Before Microsoft’s purchase of the company, LiveLoop had two undisclosed rounds of funding in February 2011 and August 2012, according to CrunchBase.
This move follows Microsoft’s purchase of calendar app Sunrise in February, as well as its acquisition of email apps creator Acompli, which has already had an effect on Microsoft’s Outlook app for iOS and Android