Breaking the ice on AppSpace’s acquisition of Igloo – Part 4

This is the penultimate part of our blog series around the recent acquisition of Igloo by AppSpace. Hear from Paul Carter – Chairman at Mosaique – as he explores the announcement and discusses the importance of a future roadmap to support goal setting and potential for further growth.

If you missed the previous installments, you can read them here: one, two, three.

Important considerations for your intranet

Whether you are a seasoned intranet customer, or seeking advice in your early research stage, hopefully my words still ring true. An intranet is an internal platform that your employees will use everyday, however it shouldn’t become stagnant. Your intranet should continue to grow to reflect your organisational goals and your employee’s daily needs, from the latest tools and technologies, to intuitive user experiences and effective communication to relevant departments.

When considering a new intranet, or considering whether it’s time to migrate to a new solution, you should consider what elements are most important to make daily working life easy for your employees, and how you can ensure that your intranet is future proofed for future change and growth.

This could be vital technology integrations, AI-supported features, wayfinder signage, frontline communications, device responsiveness & flexibility, and more. You may not require these elements at the offset, but it is important to consider intranet providers that have a clear understanding of employee engagement and experience, and have a strong roadmap for future improvements, staying ahead of the curve so your employees can stay ahead.

A turning point for Igloo customers

As I mentioned in part two of my series, Igloo whilst keeping strong customer relationships and support, have in my personal opinion historically been limited by their legacy technology, meaning that though development is possible, it is not a quick change. The recent acquisition is a potential turning point for current Igloo customers, considering whether their current platform still serves them as they want, whether AppSpace has the changes they want to see, or if a new intranet provider might suit their growing needs and goals better. It is important to ensure that your new intranet is not the end of the road, but just the beginning.

The importance of a future roadmap

A future roadmap is vital to ensure that your intranet provider is willing to take future steps with you, driving innovation behind the scenes so new technologies are already in the works by the time you first hear about them. The last thing you want is to be waiting for a feature that could already be out-of-the-box, rather than paying a lot of money for custom development on a legacy solution. Your provider should always be two steps ahead, anticipating your future needs.

Listen to a recent Igloo-to-LumApps customer's words on the LumApps roadmap...

Look forward with LumApps

This is why LumApps was for us. A clear, confident leader in intranet solutions – labelled so by the Gartner Magic Quadrant – with a bold, forward-looking approach to how the company can grow with their customers. LumApps’ platform offers a wide range of dynamic, out-of-the-box widgets and microapps, that seamlessly integrate to create a customised, thriving employee engagement hub. But it’s not only about the technology, more so their focus is on employees. Driving engagement, productivity and success for the organisation from C-suite leaders to frontline employees, LumApps learns from their customers and are continually searching for ways to improve.

Introducing Beekeeper to the Hive

An exciting announcement for LumApps was the recent acquisition of frontline success platform, Beekeeper. An intuitive employee app designed to drive productivity and make life easier for frontline employees, Beekeeper are at the top of their game in the frontline employee engagement space. Recently bought by LumApps, they have announced that Beekeeper and LumApps will be fully integrated into one thriving employee engagement platform within the next 12 months. Driving clear communication, transparency and employee recognition via an intuitive mobile app experience, offering a wide range of innovative features from AI-powered assistance to engaging workflows and direct communication. This partnership will harness future innovation across organisations, driving success for frontline workers everywhere.

To me, this is a clear example of how LumApps are paving the way, and why they have been named a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader in 2025. Their important acquisition will equip their customers with the valuable tools they need to stay on top of their game, driving employee engagement, productivity and satisfaction.

Growing your intranet with confidence

Confidence in your decision making is essential, future-proofing your investment for years to come. This refers to not only the cost of your licensing or professional services, but the significant time and resource cost for your business, which can far outweigh the initial costs. It’s important to choose an intranet provider that is prepared for continued growth to ensure that you don’t have to invest significant additional costs or time later down the line.

Igloo and AppSpace

With the acquisition of Igloo, we can see a clear decision to onboard over 300+ existing customers to AppSpace, however this may not be seamless. AppSpace’s solution is designed to make life easier for frontline workers and facilities management, communicating clear messages and wayfinder signage across the organisation. Where it is more limited is collaboration and employee engagement, resource repositories do exist, but it is less focused on day to day tasks and more so communication.

With Igloo customers potentially being offered migration to AppSpace, we can expect to see mixed feelings, with some customers wanting to research to see if AppSpace’s platform is fit for their unique needs, or if other intranet providers should be considered. At this stage, organisations will need to be migration planning, whether that be to or away from AppSpace/Igloo. In order to successfully migrate Igloo customers over, AppSpace will need a significant shift to meet the existing and evolving needs of existing Igloo customers.

Your first-hand support

If this acquisition directly affects you, this is the stage we would recommend having a discussion with an intranet consultant like ourselves at Mosaique, to fully understand your needs, your existing Igloo platform and the best route forward for your intranet solution.

Impartially, we are happy to discuss with Igloo customers about their current solution or future needs, based on our extensive understanding of Igloo, LumApps, AppSpace and other intranet providers. This consultation is intended as an opportunity to pick the brains of one of the UK’s leading intranet consultancy teams.

As intranet partners for over 10 years, 7 at Igloo and a continued partnership with LumApps, we are leading partners in intranet consultancy, as well as an essential wing of our full-service agency across design, digital development and marketing, making us agile and experienced to support you across our internal teams.

This does not come with an agenda or approach that shoe-horns you into a solution that may not be the right fit for your business.

Any offers of free content migration and licenses for a certain period of time are irrelevant if you are sitting with the wrong technology and solution for your current business needs.

Whilst I have mentioned above the resource costs to deploy any SaaS technology, making the wrong choice has so many more added business costs that can be hard to absorb. Yes, there are the financial and operational costs but most importantly strategic and human costs.

Finally in all of this comes the human factor – working with a business, consultants, and people you can trust to help support your decision making.

Employees generally feel frustrated, stressed, disengaged, and undervalued which are counter to all the reasons businesses invest in an intranet.

This is part 4 of 5 blogs delving into my thoughts on the Igloo acquisition by AppSpace. You can jump back to part 1 here.

Paul Carter, Chairman at Mosaique