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Morning Markets: Microsoft bought something new for itself. Let’s take a look.

Software giant bought , a Texas-based dev shop, it today. The Redmond-based company has now made , according to Crunchbase.

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The XOXCO deal, therefore, is just one among many. And it’s not the largest, given that Microsoft spent billions earlier this year for . The terms of the XOXCO deal were not shared, which nearly always means that the transaction in question was small.

But the size of the deal isn’t so important. (For reference, XOXCO during its life as a private company.) What does matter is what XOXCO is currently known for, and what it may do for Microsoft.

Bringing back to mind our prior work on Microsoft’s work to limit Slack’s incursion into its productivity goldmine, observe the 聽report on the recent acquisition:

“Among [XOXCO’s] products are聽, which Microsoft describes as ‘the first commercially available bot for Slack that helps schedule meetings.’ Howdy assists with the creation of custom bots, including bots for work chat, bots for customer support and bots for marketing. XOXCO also sells Botkit, a collection of development tools for those working on GitHub. Microsoft has partnered with XOXCO for a number of years.”

This deal, therefore, could work in two directions. First, it could limit new, useful products being built for , a well-capitalized company that is gunning for a larger share of the productivity market. And, Microsoft could bring the new talent into its own work to combat Slack (its Teams product, mostly). Either way, the deals seems聽like a reasonable move by Microsoft, though one that underscores the possible risk that Slack poses to the older company.

The recent pace of Microsoft’s acquisitions.

The deal is also a win (of sorts) for the Austin startup scene, which we’ve聽covered once or twice. XOXCO’s exit makes our focus on the area seem even more valid than usual.

Top Image Credit: .