Today’s theme is “odd couples”. First up: contact center software vendor Serenova is merging with video conferencing vendor Lifesize. The connection may seem tenuous but remember that Serenova was purchased in 2016 by Marlin Equity Partners, which then backed Serenova’s acquisition of Telstrat call analytics in 2017 and ProScheduler workforce scheduling in 2019. The stated goal is a “holistic unified communications portfolio”
B2B relationship intelligence platform Affinity has purchased Toronto-based Nudge.ai, a somewhat-similar product which shut down in January. Nudge closed its doors when they still had enough money in the bank to pay off all creditors and return a bit to investors. Did I mention they’re Canadian?
The growth of privacy technology is another trend worth following. The latest news is privacy-safe search engine vendor DuckDuckGo sharing its auto-updated list of internet domains that track people online. The list is 5,326 domains and growing.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.