Atlassian tries before it buys HipChat
Atlassian has added yet another company to its portfolio of acquisitions, this time purchasing San Francisco-based private chat company HipChat after trying the product internally for nine months.
(Screenshot by Michael Lee/ZDNet Australia)
HipChat, which is a hosted private chat service that allows instant messaging and group chat for companies and teams, is already being integrated into Atlassian's project as well as its issue tracking software, JIRA, its content collaboration software, Confluence, and its developer tools, FishEye and Crucible.
It allows for real-time communication, file sharing and group collaboration, and HipChat has designed it to run on just about anything, including through a web browser, a native Windows or Mac client, or iOS or Android. Failing that, users can still use SMS, which integrates with HipChat.
HipChat CEO and co-founder Pete Curley said the decision to merge with Atlassian simply made sense and would enable HipChat to be scaled up.
"The no-friction business model, the customer base, the culture, the free beer — all things that are perfectly aligned with where we want to take the business. We're excited to join Atlassian to change the way teams work together."
Curley and HipChat's two other co-founders, Garret Heaton and Chris Rivers, will still be involved in the development of HipChat, joining Atlassian in its San Francisco offices to watch over the growth of the product.
According to a post made by HipChat's founders on its blog, the move will help the company acquire more servers and provide better support to users, while maintaining its current pricing model and continuing to build new features. At the moment, HipChat's pricing stands at US$2/month per user, with a free 30-day trial available.
Atlassian had already been using HipChat internally prior to the purchase, with half of the company starting to use it since the first user signed on nine months ago, essentially test-driving the product on behalf of its customers.
"We always say that our best customer is ourselves — if we love something, it's likely our customers will love it, too," Atlassian CEO and co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes wrote on Atlassian's blog.
"HipChat is incredible — perfect for product teams, but fantastic for any team. Its use absolutely exploded at Atlassian, demonstrating the viral adoption potential of a modern communication system for teams," he said. "Connecting and sharing ideas in real time helps teams move faster, and HipChat does this better than any other product I've used."