WeChat Enterprise APP… What is it, and why it will fail.
Tencent has announced yesterday the release of a new separate APP for companies internal communication. Or in another words: a surprising cross-breeding of WeChat and Slack.
What will the APP look like?
Unsurprisingly the APP will look… very much like WeChat
The “Enterprise WeChat” APP is basically WeChat with:
- More security (so that information can’t be shared easily if it is to be restricted to a company or even to a certain management group)
- Additional features to improve company communication (for instance ability confirm reception of a message)
When will it launch?
In a couple of months
Final launch date has not been announced yet.
Will it be mobile only?
No.
The WeChat Enterprise APP will ship with iOS, Android, Mac, PC and web versions, which will enable to use the application on all platforms.
The desktop client of the WeChat Enterprise APP looks eerily similar to the current desktop version of WeChat (hopefully, this one will enable to check chat history!)
Are WeChat Enterprise APP and WeChat Enterprise accounts two different things?
Yes, they are different.
WeChat Enterprise accounts are just a separate tab in your Public Account folders (which enable to create secure accounts with “super features” such as the ability to send unlimited messages to a small amount of users, sub-accounts, etc…
WeChat Enterprise APP is a completely separate APP.
The two will however connect, although it’s not yet clear how. For instance, it’s already confirmed that the WeChat Enterprise APP will be able to import contacts from existing WeChat Enterprise Accounts.
Is it likely to succeed?
We would rate the probability of success of the APP as fairly unlikely.
A few things can justify our prediction:
- This market is not new. Many applications such as DingDing talk, Eko and Teambition have been trying to crack the Chinese market. To no avail so far.
- The very own Entreprise Accounts of Tencent haven’t seen a phenomenal rise either. There use is sparse, and often not very advanced.
- At the end of the day, the biggest competitor of the WeChat Enterprise APP is… WeChat. The past few years have seen WeChat users as very willing to mix their work communication with the personal one (to an extend which would be unthinkable to a western user using Facebook). If WeChat enterprise account didn’t manage to bridge the gap, why would a separate APP succeed?
In other words, Tencent is facing the same challenge over and over again: they made the best thing under the sun, and now they’re trying to find ways to defeat (at least parts of) their monster.
They succeeded in doing that by making WeChat the QQ-killer. Will WeChat enterprise APP succeed in replacing even a small part of WeChat use-case and halt the increasing permeability of our working and personal lifes?
The bets are on.