Every startup has heard this question. It’s asked by friends, industry colleagues, and especially investors. The heart of the question is a good one. Why? Because with competition comes both market validation and a reason to innovate and create something different.
At one level, we could say that email and SMS are our competition, but that wouldn’t be completely true.
We could say that Yammer and other internal social media tools are competitors. But generally those type of social media tools are best for stationary employees assigned to a desk and who actually have an “office number.”
What would you think if I said the competition for Red e App is actually Apple, Google, and Facebook. Want to know why? Read TechCrunch’s Messaging War article. No really, go ahead. Read it first then come back to the blog. I’ll wait.
What did you see? Three mammoth companies posed to fight it out over who will control the mobile messaging landscape. What are they missing and how does Red e App differentiate itself from them? Privacy. Security. Internal mobile communication.
Facebook is by and large a personal communication platform. As nearly everyone says, “Facebook is personal. LinkedIn is professional.”
Apple, while innovative to the core, is focused on building the iCloud brand and @me.com membership. This is fine for those companies that employ an Apple device ONLY culture. But, that doesn’t help enterprise, healthcare, and education institutions who are struggling to navigate the BYOD culture.
Google is Android. They’re bringing the hardware and software under one roof but still, no matter what solution they deploy, not everyone is going to have a @gmail.com or Google+ account.
It’s no accident that Red e App is both a native iOS and Android app. We get it. We provide a secure, private, mobile messaging solution for large enterprise businesses. Bring on the big 3. We love competition.
Patrick Goodman
Red e App Product and Engagement Director
