WhatsApp Enterprise references found in beta apps

By Brittany Roston/

We've known for a while now that WhatsApp has plans for businesses, and now references to those plans may have been found in the messaging app's latest beta release for mobile devices. According to @WABetaInfo, references to "Enterprise" have been found in the newest Android, iOS, and Windows Phone versions of the beta app, as well as some changes to how messages are handled.

WhatsApp is highly popular, as evidenced by the company's regular milestones. The company has taken steps to become more business-friendly over the past year or so. For example, WhatsApp announced last summer that it would start testing tools aimed at organizations and businesses by 2016's end.

Details about those tools and the related testing have been slight. According to a Twitter account that monitors WhatsApp beta releases, though, there are references to WhatsApp Enterprise for the major mobile platforms, indicating we may see the feature appear in some formal capacity in the relatively near future.

The account goes on to claim that it has found evidence of structured messages being worked on for businesses, of which there are said to be several 'templates.' Evidence of the structured messages is said to have first been found in a previous iOS version release, but news of it was just now published in light of the Android revelation.

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