Microsoft is looking to improve Microsoft Teams in a bid to challenge Slack. The two apps are taking each other on in an attempt to dominate the collaborative, chatty, workplace application space. It seems a battle is slowly brewing on the horizon. Teams is expected to replace Skype for Business teamwork app. The Teams app will also get the advanced voice and video calling technology that’s already available to Skype users.
According to Ron Markezich, Vice President at Microsoft Office 365, the aim is to facilitate the evolvement of Teams as a core communications client in the market. Markezich added that Microsoft is looking to make Teams the hero and the primary go-to app for all video, voice, and meetings calls.
Teams is also included in the Microsoft Office 365 bundle. Subscriptions for Microsoft Office 365 have been quite immense in the recent months. There were at least 100 million subscribers as of April 2017. This gives the company a massive competitive edge over Slack. Besides, because Teams will now be part of the Office 365 bundle, users who are already subscribed to the Office 365 aren’t interested in having an additional subscription for a collaborative chatty app at the workplace.
They can simply use Teams as part of the Office 365 subscription and seeing as Microsoft is putting so much effort in improving Teams and upstaging Slack in the process, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a big portion of the 100 million Office 365 subscribers retaining Microsoft Teams without necessarily considering Slack as an alternative option.
Slack reported earlier this month that it already has 50,000 teams that are paying for its service. The app has also managed to see 6 million users log in into its service within a single day. Despite this seemingly strong presence in the market, it’s clear that Microsoft Teams is also doing very well with the company. Recently they confirmed that they’re already serving over 125,000 organizations.
Slack claims that Microsoft has openly copied some of its chat features. The company has been in direct competition with Microsoft since 2016. However, Slack prides itself as a company that understands how people communicate in the workplace over software mediums. Slack is confident that even if Teams duplicates some of the key features available on its app, it lacks the understanding and will to facilitate an easier workplace communication through software mediums.
But it seems that Microsoft is unrelenting. The company and its Teams app are looking to dominate this market and it remains to be seen whether this will happen at Slack’s expense. The Microsoft Office 365’s 100 million subscribers will surely be the defining factor and while it will be possible for Slack to still maintain its market share, Microsoft Teams is surely on course to become one of the biggest players in this space.
