Media reports say that Google, now morphed into a holding company Alphabet Inc, wants to extend their chat facilities and is in talks with messaging startup Symphony Communication Services LLC for a round of fundraising.
All the digital communications of financial firms, corporate customers and individuals are put on one centralized platform in the Symphony's chat service.
The talks are ongoing and no terms are finalized yet, the source added.
Google invested in a new round of funding for Symphony that values the company at about $650 million, said a report that the published in the Wall Street Journal which quoted people who were familiar with the matter.
The service is backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc and other big Wall Street banks.
In October 2014, a $66 million investment was made by Symphony through a funding drive by Goldman Sachs which led a group of 14 banks including Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. this was the startup funding for Symphony. There was no comment from the spokeswoman of Symphony.
Symphony is viewed by many in the Wall Street as a prime rival to firms like Bloomberg LP and Thomson Reuters Corp that are engaged in the business of providing messaging and information services for bankers, traders and investors.
Those terminals can cost tens of thousands of dollars per year for each customer.
While the small businesses and individuals can use the Symphony tool for free, the tool is available to businesses with more than 50 users for $15 per user per month.
Last month, Symphony said they are working with News Corp's Dow Jones to offer news stories in its service and with McGraw Hill Financial Inc to integrate data and analytics from its S&P Capital IQ product.
While Google is trying to raise funds and increase business with Symphony, another IT giant Facebook Inc wants to bring internet access to large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and would launch a satellite in partnership with France's Eutelsat Communications.
This satellite launch would be part of Facebook’s Internet.org platform expansion internet access program mainly via mobile phones. The satellite is under construction and will be launched in 2016, the companies said.
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post that the new satellite called AMOS-6 will cover large parts of West, East and Southern Africa.
"To connect people living in remote regions, traditional connectivity infrastructure is often difficult and inefficient, so we need to invent new technologies," Zuckerberg said.
Focused on job listings, agricultural information, healthcare and education, as well as Facebook's own social network and messaging services, the Internet.org platform offers free access to pared-down web services.
With more than half the world's population is still offline, the United Nations Broadband Commission said last month that the growth in the number of people with access to the Internet is slowing.
With a majority using mobile devices to access their profiles, Facebook has nearly 20 million users in major African markets Nigeria and Kenya.
(Sources:www.reuters.com)
All the digital communications of financial firms, corporate customers and individuals are put on one centralized platform in the Symphony's chat service.
The talks are ongoing and no terms are finalized yet, the source added.
Google invested in a new round of funding for Symphony that values the company at about $650 million, said a report that the published in the Wall Street Journal which quoted people who were familiar with the matter.
The service is backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc and other big Wall Street banks.
In October 2014, a $66 million investment was made by Symphony through a funding drive by Goldman Sachs which led a group of 14 banks including Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co. this was the startup funding for Symphony. There was no comment from the spokeswoman of Symphony.
Symphony is viewed by many in the Wall Street as a prime rival to firms like Bloomberg LP and Thomson Reuters Corp that are engaged in the business of providing messaging and information services for bankers, traders and investors.
Those terminals can cost tens of thousands of dollars per year for each customer.
While the small businesses and individuals can use the Symphony tool for free, the tool is available to businesses with more than 50 users for $15 per user per month.
Last month, Symphony said they are working with News Corp's Dow Jones to offer news stories in its service and with McGraw Hill Financial Inc to integrate data and analytics from its S&P Capital IQ product.
While Google is trying to raise funds and increase business with Symphony, another IT giant Facebook Inc wants to bring internet access to large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and would launch a satellite in partnership with France's Eutelsat Communications.
This satellite launch would be part of Facebook’s Internet.org platform expansion internet access program mainly via mobile phones. The satellite is under construction and will be launched in 2016, the companies said.
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post that the new satellite called AMOS-6 will cover large parts of West, East and Southern Africa.
"To connect people living in remote regions, traditional connectivity infrastructure is often difficult and inefficient, so we need to invent new technologies," Zuckerberg said.
Focused on job listings, agricultural information, healthcare and education, as well as Facebook's own social network and messaging services, the Internet.org platform offers free access to pared-down web services.
With more than half the world's population is still offline, the United Nations Broadband Commission said last month that the growth in the number of people with access to the Internet is slowing.
With a majority using mobile devices to access their profiles, Facebook has nearly 20 million users in major African markets Nigeria and Kenya.
(Sources:www.reuters.com)