When Microsoft announced its purchase of Clipchamp, our gaming editor Jez Corden speculated that Microsoft might roll Clipchamp into Microsoft 365 or Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft's first-party video editing options fall far behind the competition, so an infusion of Clipchamp tech could be a major boost to editing gaming clips on Xbox consoles or creating videos on Windows 11 PCs.
Purchasing companies is nothing new to Microsoft, but how Microsoft proceeds after its acquisitions differs greatly on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes Microsoft keeps a product going. Other times it guts unique aspects out of a company and integrates them within other Microsoft products. In some instances, Microsoft almost clones the primary product of a company it acquires. This week's poll asks for your predictions on what Microsoft will do with Clipchamp.
Back in 2015, Microsoft acquired the popular to-do list application Wunderlist. Microsoft spent years building Microsoft To Do, though that process took longer than expected. Eventually, Microsoft To Do reached feature parity with Wunderlist, replaced the old to-do list app, and was integrated with Microsoft 365 and several Microsoft apps.
If Microsoft went with the Wunderlist route, it would create its own video editing platform and slowly migrate people from Clipchamp to its new offering.
The history of Mixer is another story. To oversimplify things, Microsoft purchased the burgeoning game streaming service (then known as Beam), rebranded it, and tried to keep it going for a while. Eventually, Microsoft killed Mixer, leaving streamers behind. While Mixer as a service is dead, tech Microsoft gained from the acquisition of Mixer lives on in other products.
Microsoft probably wouldn't want to relive the drama of Mixer shutting down, but a similar outcome is a possibility. Microsoft may like some of the tech that facilitates web-based video editing but not care about Clipchamp as a platform. Microsoft loves cross-platform tech that enables real-time collaboration and creation. It could gut anything it considers unique and valuable from Clipchamp and use it to improve other services.
In contrast to Mixer, which only lived for a short time after being acquired by Microsoft, Skype is still around. Microsoft purchased Skype back in 2011 for $8.5 billion. Skype isn't the dominant video platform that it used to be, but it hasn't been killed like Mixer. Microsoft took bits and pieces of tech from Skype and integrated them with other products and services while maintaining Skype as its own communication platform.
Following a similar route with Clipchamp could see the video editing service continue to live on. Meanwhile, Microsoft could take the best bits of Clipchamp and utilize them for functions like editing gaming clips within the Xbox app and collaborating on videos within Teams.
There are times when Microsoft purchases a company and largely lets it do its own thing. Microsoft purchased LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in 2016 and, for the most part, has left it alone. Microsoft has integrated LinkedIn with some of its other services, such as Outlook, but LinkedIn hasn't made sweeping changes or been replaced by a competing Microsoft product.
This type of outcome seems unlikely for Clipchamp, as it's nowhere near the size of LinkedIn.
What do you think the future holds for Clipchamp? Let us know in the poll above and explain your thoughts in the comments below.
