Wire Offers New Business-Focused Solution

Swiss outfit Wire has recently launched new business-targeted features for its secure messaging platform. Hailing traditionally from the consumer market, the company is now offering an enterprise-ready platform, set to compete against the Slacks and Skype for Businesses of the world. The primary feature is around the concept of ‘team accounts’, which provides owners with administration control, notably adding and removing members, assigning roles, and inviting guests to teams. Owners can also access billing details and delete teams altogether. The new offering is just a start for Wire, which is working on adding more enterprise features in 2018, including larger file size limits, optional archive and backup, and self-hosted solutions.  

Secure mobile messaging company Wire has come a long way since its inception back in 2014 when it was founded by a group of former Skype, Apple, and Microsoft employees, including Skype’s co-founder Janus Friis. When Wire launched, its main advantage over Skype and other mVoIP and messenger apps was the promise of crystal clear voice. But that was not enough to win over Skype users. The startup decided to add value by addressing another gap in the market: secure end-to-end communication. Wire made the decision to implement end-to-end encryption by adopting Proteus, a custom implementation of the Axolotl Ratchet protocol (originally developed by Open Whisper Systems and now known as Signal, itself modeled after the Silent Circle Instant Messaging Protocol).

By March 2016 the company introduced a second version of its messaging service that enabled end-to-end encryption for all conversations (messaging and voice), including secure video calling, a desktop client, and multi-device (mobile and desktop, including browser) support. More recently added features include file-sharing, video and audio messaging, sync between devices, timed messages, sketching capabilities, and search text.

Based in Switzerland, Wire relays communications through its network of cloud computers, but user communications are stored in encrypted form on their own devices. As such, it offers a slightly different privacy method than some of the incumbents, who are less focused on privacy and only truly secure the communications channel, rather than the data itself. In large part, this is to allow for any lawful intercept requests by enforcement authorities. Wire plays the privacy card, and therefore cannot offer any means for lawful intercept capabilities, even if it wanted to.

The expansion of Wire’s privacy protection technology will include multiple devices, such as a phone or desktop PC simultaneously, which allows the firm to directly challenge the large VoIP incumbents. Today, organizations increasingly prize end-to-end communication tools due to the endemic espionage, both from corporate and government threat actors. Consequently, interest in end-to-end tools for the protection of intellectual property and confidential business information has become a priority, especially at the executive level. The main obstacle for Wire is to prove it can support business applications as well as consumer, and provide the service expected in the corporate world. It will need to prove that it’s technology is up to the standards demanded by organizations. 

In that respect, Wire has a solid start in terms of technology guarantee. Despite its lack of business experience, Wire client and server code is open sourced and publicly available on GitHub, which allows external technical experts to evaluate the security of its products. Further, the implementation of the Proteus messaging protocol, Cryptobox API and its C wrapper Cryptobox-C have been independently reviewed by Kudelski Security and X41 D-Sec. The review covers Proteus implementation in all platforms where Wire is available:  iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux, and Wire for Web that works in modern, webRTC-supported browsers. Certainly, this puts Wire in a competitively advantageous position in Europe as it will allow organizations to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which comes into force next year. 

There is a dynamic convergence happening between the consumer-based secure mobile messaging market and the more traditional enterprise email industry. Secure communications products (like Signal, Silent Circle, Wire, etc.), classed as instant or real-time communication tools, traditionally stem from the mobile ecosystem. It’s the expansion of phone call and SMS to the mobile IP platform: initially with messaging and then adding voice.

Enterprise email suites have a longer history, stemming from the desktop world. While email sends instantaneously, there is no real-time or instant expectation, unlike mobile, and voice was not a primary feature. Secure communications are originally all about small form factors, as opposed to the heavier capabilities enabled by email.

Today, both product markets are colliding, pitting the features of each directly against each other. Secure communications products can now include file sharing, voice and video recordings, conference calling, whiteboards, etc. Group participants, and group video conference calls are popular, and the platform is often multi-device, with usability on desktop, in the browser as well as on mobile. They are increasingly being used by consumers for business productivity, and providers have started launching enterprise-focused versions of their consumer platforms as a response.

On the other end, enterprise email suite is increasingly integrating functionalities touted by secure communications providers; Microsoft Outlook has Skype for Business integration, and Google’s Gsuite incorporates Gmail, Drive, Docs, Hangouts and Google+. Providers are integrating the real-time tools of the mobile world with email functionality.

For consumers, mobile communications applications still prime over email, especially for younger generations. For businesses, email remains the core communications tool, but mobile communications apps are increasingly popular in the work place, because of personal use and the BYOD culture. As such, both markets are practically competing head-on, but the email industry is having a harder time integrating mobile features, while secure communications apps like Wire are more easily adopting email-like features and presenting themselves as a viable alternative for businesses. The successful applications will be those that can integrate collaborative features that are both platform and form-factor agnostic.