The end of Kaizala

Microsoft discontinued its Kaizala messaging app on 31st August this year. I found out because a number of schools that were using it transferred to ChatPro.

I was interested to know why Microsoft had shut down an apparently established product.

Kaizala (translated from Marathi as ‘What happened’ - sound familiar?) was developed and originally released by Microsoft in India in 2016, expanding globally in subsequent years as part of Office 365.

It was intended to be a simple messaging app, like WhatsApp. It offered robust, straightforward communication. It was optimised for 2G, making it ideal for areas with limited connectivity.

However, Microsoft gradually added workflow, customer engagement and billing features, apparently contradicting the original concept of simplicity. It was becoming an alternative to Slack and Teams rather than WhatsApp.

In the end, it seems to have been this feature growth that led to Kaizala’s demise. It wasn’t different enough from Teams to make sense in the 365 line-up, making it an obvious target when Microsoft wanted to rationalise their communication offering.

For me it’s a reminder that sometimes less is more. Simple, user friendly products can solve problems for people. Complex, multi-purpose products can be more trouble than they’re worth. For a product developer, editing should be as important as creating.