WordPress owner acquires Beeper, giving it two chat apps to rule them all

Enlarge / Beeper's new apps are now available, without waitlist, across nearly all mobile and desktop platforms.

Beeper, the multi-network messaging app that recently gave up on trying to engineer around Apple's walled-off iMessage service, has been acquired by Automattic, the company behind WordPress. It is now open to everyone and has a completely revamped Android app.

All of Beeper's workers will join Automattic and will continue operating as an independent team, according to a press release. Eric Migicovsky, creator of the Pebble smartwatch and co-founder of Beeper, will become Automattic's head of messaging. Beeper and Texts.com, acquired last year by Automattic, will work together.

Given that Texts.com provides a similar "all your chats in one place" function but also an iMessage bridge using an app you run on your own Apple computers, it's likely that Beeper and Texts will consolidate into one platform that more closely hews to the "all" part of the companies' mission statements.