<p>Major enterprises like Starbucks and Walmart have tens of thousands of employees out interacting with customers, and they are largely cut off from general corporate communications.</p><p>Cotap CEO Jim Patterson has made it his mission to bring them into the fold.</p><p>Formerly head of product at Yammer, Patterson left after the Microsoft acquisition to start Cotap, a mobile messaging service for businesses. The San Francisco-based company released a free iOS app in October that employees from more than 6,000 companies now use. Once the workers plug in their corporate email, it adds them to a shared directory, where they can connect and communicate with their fellow workers.</p><p>"We want to be the fastest and easiest way to text message a coworker," said Patternson in a conversation with VentureBeat.</p><p><a href="http://venturebeat.com/2014/01/28/cotap-enterprise-messaging-app-raises-10-million/">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/28/enterprise-messaging-app-cotap-nabs-10m-to-make-every-worker-a-knowledge-worker/">Enterprise Messaging App Cotap Nabs $ 10M To Make &#039;Every Worker A ...</a> (TechCrunch)</p><p><a href="http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2014/01/27/cotap-raises-10m-to-bring-business.html">Cotap raises $ 10M to bring business messaging to the front lines</a> (Silicon Valley Business Journal)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=d9l3Hdt1b6bEFQMfCcP2nQSy6HMzM&authuser=0&ned=us">11 additional articles.</a></p>