At the beginning of last year January, 2012, Ray Ozzie talked to CNET about starting a new company called Cocomo. Ray Ozzie was chief technical officer and chief software architect at Microsoft between 2005 and 2010. Before working at Microsoft, Ozzie created Lotus Notes. In the latest Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing Cocomo has become Talko.
In Ozzie’s interview with CNET he didn’t reveal too much about what the new company was going to do. He sort of hinted at the company’s goal by saying, “A new day has dawned as it relates to how we might interact with one another, and a handful of us are just starting work on a new communications product for this new world. We've got huge goals, pragmatic plans, and a sense of urgency. We aspire to deliver compelling tools for social interaction that people will use, value and love.”
Since that time, Ozzie has changed the name of the company to Talko and raised $4 million. It was speculated that Talko would be working on cloud-based backend services. Now it seems that what it is actually working on is a consumer-facing mobile communications app.
Ray Ozzie has shown great fortitude to keep all of the information a secret. If you go to the Talko website, you will find a blank page. Well, it is not entirely blank, at the very top is an email address for [email protected]. The rest of the page is simply blank.
According to a report from GigaOm, Talko’s co-founder Ransom Richardson recently spoke at an Amazon Internet Services meetup. It seems that Talko will be working over Amazon Web Services (AWS) and creating communications services for cellular devices.
It would appear that the company is not working on any cloud-based backend enterprise, but rather a consumer-facing cell application. It is still hard to say what it is actually working on since the only real information that can be gathered is from job postings. So there is an idea of what positions the co-founders have been looking to fill, but not much more than that, which is just what you see on its website.
In recent months, messaging applications have been surging. A lot of companies have been gaining new users hand over fist. Viber, which offers free calls and text messaging, had 175 million users last month. WhatsApp is close to 250 million users and Skype is up around 800 million users. As you can see, the number of users keeps growing.
So where does Talko come into play? While the messaging app marketplace is huge, it also appears to be very fragmented. Does Talko have something in mind that would change things or does it have anything new to offer? These are questions that are extremely difficult to answer. It would appear that the only ones who know are the closed lipped people at Talko and they do not appear to be able to open their mouths outside of closed doors.
The only thing that everyone seems to be sure about is that the app will be on Android and iOS. It will use HTML5 and JavaScript, support synchronous and asynchronous messaging and real-time technology like WebRTC.
Edited by
Rachel Ramsey
