Microsofts next major addition to its suite of productivity tools could be video editing software. Microsoft acquired Clipchamp on Tuesday. This company offers web-based video editing and creation software. It allows anyone to create promos, videos, or video presentations for social media sites like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Microsoft says Clipchamp will enhance its existing productivity experience in Microsoft 365 for schools, families, and businesses.
Microsoft was attracted to the acquisition for several reasons. With a growing number of tools available, anyone can create and use video today. Even non-professionals can quickly and easily edit video and produce high quality content. Microsoft explains that video has become a new type document for businesses, making it possible to communicate with colleagues, explain processes, and pitch ideas.
Clipchamp was also considered an attractive acquisition target by the company, because it combined the simplicity and power of a web application with full computing power from a computer with graphics processing unit acceleration (GPU). This makes it a great fit for Microsoft Windows customers.
Clipchamp had created a variety of online tools for video editing and creation, including Clipchamp Create. This video maker allows you to trim, cut, crop, rotate, speed control and add text, audio and images. Other tools include templates, audio libraries and screen recorders. It also offers text-to-speech and screen recorders. These tools make it easier to create video. Clipchamp Utilities, a discontinued utility set, once contained a video compressor and converters as well as an in browser webcam recorder. Clipchamp Utilities has some of these functions, but not all.
Clipchamp allows creators to choose from different output styles and aspect proportions, making it an ideal tool for online marketers.
Clipchamp was founded in 2013 and has since served more than 390,000 businesses. Its user base has grown to over 17 million. The use of video has increased as more companies adopt it for communication, training, and reports. Clipchamp witnessed an 186% increase of video exports in the first half 2021. The 16:9 aspect ratio video exports grew 189%, while the 9/16 aspect ratio for sharing to places such as Instagram Stories and TikTok grew 140% and 72% respectively. Screen recording increased by 57%, while webcam recording increased by 65%.
Alexander Dreiling, CEO of Clipchamp, commented on the growth in July. He noted that the company had almost tripled its workforce over the previous year.
On average, we are acquiring twice as many users than we did a year ago. We also double the usage rate. This means that more people are creating video content than ever. Although social media videos are a key component of business, we have seen the adoption of internal communication use cases in the last year.
Microsoft did not disclose the purchase price of Clipchamp, but it had raised more than $15 million according to Crunchbase.
Microsoft is not the first to enter the video market.
This company was one of the many suitors that pursued TikTok during Trump's effort to force the sale of China-owned TikTok, which Trump called a national security risk. ByteDance would need to have sold TikToks U.S. operations in order to keep TikTok alive in the U.S. The Biden administration put a halt to the sale. Microsoft launched Stream, a video service for businesses, several years ago. It aimed to make video accessible to enterprises as easy as YouTube. It acquired Flipgrid, a social learning platform that used short video clips to facilitate collaboration in 2018. Microsoft Teams has also been given more video capabilities as remote work becomes the norm.
Microsoft's acquisition follows Adobes $1.28 purchase of Frame.io, a video review and collaboration platform that has been used more than a million times since its inception in 2014. Frame.io, however, is targeted more at creative professionals than Clipchamp's tools, which are open to everyone, regardless of whether they're at work, school or at home.
Dreiling stated that Clipchamp will continue growing at Microsoft with a focus to make video editing more accessible to all.
Microsoft is one of the most respected tech companies. He explained that we all grew up using iconic Microsoft products and have continued to use them ever since. Being part of Microsoft gives us the opportunity to be part of a legacy. Our future is more exciting than ever. Clipchamp has always maintained that there is no shortage of opportunities, and there is plenty of video. It is up to us to find the right way to take advantage of it. Dreiling said that Microsoft can help us approach our opportunity in completely new ways.
Microsoft didn't say when Clipchamp would be integrated into its software suite. However, it said it would share more information at a later time.
