After several difficult months, especially since the announcement of the reduction of its contributions in the WordPress ecosystem, the company Automattic has not stopped making people talk about it...
While it has just announced very bad news, with the dismissal of more than 270 employees, the company had also announced the acquisition of new tools, which makes its corporate strategy more difficult to read.
Indeed, after having acquired Texts.com in 2023, then Bleeper in 2024, which are both multi-service messaging tools, it is quite natural that Automattic announced a new acquisition...
Clay, a relationship management application
Launched in 2021, Clay is still not very popular compared to very serious competitors among other CRMs and other notebook tools of addresses.
Concretely, this solution allows users to organize their relationships, and keep them informed of their status updates on social networks like LinkedIn, WhatsApp, X, or Facebook.
In addition to being able to manage a more advanced address book, Clay also offers a calendar management solution, particularly for professionals.
Full integration into the Automattic ecosystem
Faced with Automattic's recent acquisitions that are gradually blending into this ecosystem, this should also be the case for Clay's features. However, Automattic has not yet provided further information on how this will be integrated.
Furthermore, in the press release published on the Automattic website this Thursday, June 12, we learned that Clay developers should continue developing their software. In the coming months, they should focus on integrating Clay with Automattic's recent acquisitions, Bleeper and Texts.com.
We also know that Clay developers plan to develop new connectors with ActivityPub, used in particular by Bluesky.
And if, more recently, Clay has integrated new functionalities around artificial intelligence, this should also continue and be integrated with other Automattic solutions.
Towards a new business model for Automattic?
Faced with this new acquisition by Automattic, it is legitimate to wonder what the company's new strategy consists of, as it has clearly decided to completely review its business model.
In the case of Clay, some users have already expressed their concerns about the evolution of the model, the software having in particular an offer "freemium." Automattic recently decided to move away from the entire WordPress ecosystem, so it's unclear whether Clay will be offered a new pricing plan.
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