![]() Wickr RAM was designed with the military in mind the app stays secure even in "harshest environments". Since developing its first app, Wickr Me, the company has released Wickr Pro, Wickr RAM, and Wickr Enterprise. He served in that position until November 2016, when he was replaced by Joel Wallenstrom, co-founder of iSec Partners, becoming the company's CEO and President. Mark Fields, who previously led CME's Strategic Investment Group, became the company's CEO. Nico Sell served as the company's CEO until May 2015 when she became the co-chairman of Wickr and CEO of Wickr Foundation, the newly launched nonprofit whose seed funding was provided by the company. ![]() Wickr was founded in 2012 by a group of security experts and privacy advocates. On June 25, 2021, Wickr was acquired by Amazon Web Services. The software is available for the iOS, Android, Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems. The Wickr instant messaging apps allow users to exchange end-to-end encrypted and content-expiring messages, including photos, videos, and file attachments. The company is best known for its instant messenger application of the same name. Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief, our free daily newsletter with the world’s most important and interesting news.Wickr is an American software company based in New York City. The company that can control these cloud contracts will secure a large, steady source of revenue for years to come. The US government is still in the midst of a sprawling, expensive effort to shift its IT network onto the cloud as part of a “cloud first” policy, which was announced by the Obama White House in 2010 and made law under the 2014 Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (which passed with heavy lobbying support from Amazon, among other tech giants). America’s “cloud first” policyĪmazon has much to gain from positioning itself as Uncle Sam’s default tech contractor. The ongoing legal battle has been so onerous and time-consuming that the Department of Defense is considering canceling the contract and breaking the project up into several smaller pieces, which would give Amazon another shot at grabbing a chunk of the military’s cloud budget. After the Pentagon awarded the JEDI contract to Microsoft in 2019, Amazon sued in a last-ditch effort to claw back the deal. Now, Amazon is planning to open a second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia-spitting distance from the Pentagon-as it pursues a 10-year, $10 billion contract to build the US military’s cloud computing infrastructure, part of a project dubbed JEDI. In 2013, AWS won a 10-year, $600 million contract to become the CIA’s cloud computing provider, and in 2018 documents revealed that AWS sold cloud services that underpin US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s immigrant surveillance system. The Wickr acquisition aligns with Amazon’s longer-term push to position its cloud computing arm, AWS, as a heavyweight government contractor. The US worker shortage shouldn’t surprise low-paying employersĪWS and cloud computing for the US government That creates an opportunity for Amazon to cash in by expanding Wickr’s existing business relationship with public agencies. “nterprises and government agencies have a growing desire to protect their communications across many remote locations,” he wrote. Schmidt noted in his blog post that government agencies and the military are navigating the same confusing post-pandemic shift to hybrid work as businesses everywhere. ![]() Wickr’s website also lists military contractors like ARMA Global and General Dynamics Information Technology among its partners and customers. Last year, Wickr RAM won a two-year, $35 million contract to provide encrypted messaging for the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and received at least $700,000 as part of a contract with US Customs and Border Patrol. Wickr Pro and Wickr Enterprise are geared toward privacy-conscious corporations, while Wickr RAM is designed for the military and law enforcement agencies. In addition to the free version of Wickr, which is open to the general public, the app also has three subscription businesses.
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