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Zendesk’s plan to acquire SurveyMonkey is officially dead

February 28, 2022
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Zendesk's billion-dollar plan to acquire Momentive, which runs the popular SurveyMonkey tool, has failed after its own shareholders rejected the proposal.

The deal was worth around $ 4.1 billion, with the news coming just days after the CRM giant turned down a $ 16 billion offer to be acquired by a consortium of private equity firms.

“While we were excited by the potential of this transaction to transform the customer experience and create stockholder value, we respect and appreciate the perspectives of our stockholders,” said Zendesk CEO Mikkel Svanek.

Foiled bid

In a blog post, Svanek explained a little more about what made Momentive an attractive target and Zendesk's future plans. Zendesk's business is sound, he said, but could've been augmented by Momentive.

“We planned to acquire Momentive as a way to accelerate our ability to deliver the future of customer intelligence,” he wrote. “While we will not be moving forward with that acquisition, we remain as committed as ever to helping our customers get more value out of their data.”

Investor hostility

The deal was sunk largely by activist shareholders who opposed it. The Wall Street Journal reported that Jana Partners, which owns 3%, and Janus Henderson, which owns 5%, both opposed the deal. Jana called it a “reactive and impulsive decision”.

Faced with scepticism from its own shareholders, spending $ 4.1 billion is an impossible ask. Shareholders voted against the deal on February 25.

>Zoom now lets you cut all video feeds

>Zendesk brings real-time customer support to WhatsApp and Messenger

>Zendesk boosts CRM capabilities with Smooch deal

For Momentive, the decision is not ideal. “While we are disappointed that Zendesk stockholders did not vote to approve the transaction, we are confident in our go-forward strategy,” said Monentive CEO Zander Laurie.

It remains to be seen what direction the two companies take but with intense pressure in the CRM market, Zendesk needs to find a bold new plan.

We’ve found the best CRM for small businesses

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

February 23, 2022
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Google has finally confirmed the date when it will be closing its Hangouts instant messaging service for good.

The company has revealed that enterprise and business users on “Classic Hangouts” will be upgraded to the new Google Chat service by March 22, 2022.

In a blog post, the company added that the move will ensure all Google Workspace customers will be using the same platform, with anyone trying to access Hangouts being redirected across to Google Chat.

Farewell Google Hangouts

The news brings an end to a rather protracted saga for Google that saw it extend the deadline for Hangouts' retirement several times.

News of a move first emerged in October 2019, with Hangouts officially rebranded as Google Chat for what was then G Suite enterprise users back in November 2020, and user migration over to the new service beginning the following month.

The news came as Google also revealed it would rebrand its video conferencing service (then Hangouts Meet) to Google Meet.

Now, the “final phase” of the migration will be complete within weeks, with Google noting that “it is not possible to opt out of this change”, and that all classic Hangouts applications will also be disabled, including the Android and iOS apps.

However, users will be able to export their historic Hangouts and Chat data using a special Google tool.

> Google Meet takes its first step towards the metaverse

> There's an all-new free version of Google Workspace for work

> Google is closing one of its least-loved Workspace apps

The change will not affect Hangouts users with only personal Google accounts, but it's likely that they will see a similar change soon.

For now, if your organization’s Google Workspace Admin console setting is set to “Chat and classic Hangouts,” the automatic upgrade to the new platform will occur “over the course of three weeks starting March 22, 2022.”

Customers with the “Classic Hangouts only” setting will be upgraded over the course of five weeks, starting April 4, 2022.

Here’s our list of the best online collaboration tools right now

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

February 15, 2022
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Microsoft is celebrating 20 years of .NET, its open source framework popular among developers of all stripes.

“Today marks 20 years since Visual Studio .NET launched and the first version of the .NET platform was released (or should I say, unleashed) to the world,” said Microsoft's Beth Massi in a blog post.

According to Microsoft, over five million developers use .NET globally, and it was voted as the most loved framework on Stack Overflow in 2019, 2020, and 2021, which is quite an achievement for two decade old software.

An open source friend

>This new Microsoft PowerToys update could be the least exciting ever, but you should still install it

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>Microsoft is handing out Azure freebies to open source devs

Building on .NET Framework, which was originally Windows-only, Microsoft expanded .NET over the years to include tools for developing apps on macOS and Linux. The company also led the way on open sourcing the project, resulting in an open source version on Github in 2014.

The company is hosting some cool content and events at www.dot.net (a very charming domain), so make sure to check those out if you're a fan.

Microsoft has famously had some issues with open source software, especially during the 2000s, and many were worried during its Github acquisition that the company wasn't operating on the level.

Over time, however, Microsoft has proven itself to be a welcome contributor to the open source community and .NET is a fantastic example of why: cross-platform tools beloved by developers.

“.NET has come a long way in 20 years but the original vision to change developers’ lives still holds true,” says Massi.

“You can build any type of app, for any operating system, with great performance. From high-throughput, cloud-scale services to the smallest microcontrollers .NET is there, and the community has made this platform and its large ecosystem a huge success.”

We’ve found the best laptop for programming

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

September 7, 2020
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Flash clings to life for a few more months, as Microsoft readies its next generation of browsers.

TechRadar – All the latest technology news

March 10, 2020
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Risk that comes from mobile and IoT devices must be factored into the enterprise security program. Security leaders need to be looking at those risks holistically and strategically, rather than operat…

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February 10, 2020
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While many pundits (us included) were expecting Samsung to reveal its much-rumored foldable clamshell device, the Galaxy Z Flip, at its Unpacked 2020 event on February 11, the Korean company has jumped the gun by fully revealing the device in a commercial aired during tonight's Oscars broadcast.

The commercial was spotted by The Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, who managed to capture the TV spot and post it on his Twitter page – you can check the commercial below.

In the video, the Galaxy Z Flip is mostly shown sitting on a table and folded at a 90-degree angle, allowing users to easily video chat and also view themselves, hands-free.

We'd previously heard reports that the device would be targeted at a younger female audience, and this commercial seems to back that up, particularly in the way it presents the phone in a similar fashion to the clamshell-style powder compact cases that reportedly inspired its design.

As pointed out by The Verge, small print is displayed during the commercial informing viewers that they “may notice a small crease in the center of the main screen, which is a natural characteristic of the screen.”

During its brief 30-second runtime, the ad also offers a look at the Galaxy Z Flip's small outer touch display, which sits next to the device's dual camera and shows an incoming call which can be interacted with directly. We presume notifications will also be shown on this smaller screen.

While pricing and availability information wasn't revealed during the TV spot, it does end with the suggestion that – as expected – all will be revealed during Samsung's Unpacked 2020 event.

As always, we'll keep you updated with any new Galaxy Z Flip developments as they happen.