The company announced on Friday that Amazon’s cloud computing business has acquired Wickr, an encrypted messaging platform used by government agencies and businesses. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The announcement comes as Amazon Web Services is seeking to obtain more government business. AWS and Microsoft are embroiled in a protracted lawsuit over the Pentagon’smultimillion-dollar cloud transaction. Thousands of government agencies use Amazon’s cloud computing services. Stephen Schmidt, VicePresident and ChiefInformationSecurityOfficer for AWS, said in a blog post that since the Covid19 pandemic has led many people to adopt a mixed work environment, the demand for secure communication services provided by Wickr has been sped up.
“Wickr’s secure communications solutions can help businesses and government organizations adapt to this change in their workforce and are a welcome addition to the growing number of collaboration and productivity services that AWS provides to its customers and partners.” Shi Mitt said. Notice posted on Wickr’s website confirms the acquisition: “Since our establishment ten years ago, we have grown to serve organizations in all walks of life around the world. We look forward to working with Aws for our customers and cooperation. The partners take our solutions to a new level.”
Wickr offers free applications to the public as well as paid services desined to support military communications. This San Francisco-based startup considers the Department of Defense as one of its clients. Vice reported in April that US Customs and Border Protection had purchased a license from Wickr. Wickr is also billed as “the only full-featured collaborative service that meets all the security standards outlined by the National Security Agency.”
