Microsoft Buys Office Collaboration Tool Developer LiveLoop

Microsoft has made another move to augment its productivity services, with the acquisition of an Office collaboration tool developer named LiveLoop for an undisclosed amount.

The Redmond giant confirmed the acquisition in a statement to ZDNet which read, "Microsoft is excited to welcome the talented team from LiveLoop to help build great collaboration across Office applications, as part of our strategy and vision to reinvent productivity."

The San Francisco-based LiveLoop is best known for its collaboration tools for Microsoft Office, allowing teams of people to work together on documents. Its popular LiveLoop for PowerPoint plugin converts presentations into a Web URL that becomes a collaborative document accessible by a variety of devices without any additional software.

A notice on LiveLoop's site says it will be shutting down permanently on April 24, and that new user registration as well as presentation uploads have been disabled. Current users should retrieve their data before that date.

ZDNet's long-time Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley speculates the LiveLoop acquisition could be used to complement the newly-introduced Surface Hub video-conferencing service.

Microsoft in the recent past has been making several productivity-themed acquisitions, such as the Acompli (which it rebranded into the new Outlook app) email client, and the Sunrise calendar app.

More recently, Microsoft announced its Office productivity suite will be free for devices with screen sizes smaller than 10.1 inches. The company also announced a partnership with Adobe to help build Windows 10's new default browser 'Spartan'.