software
Microsoft attacks Slack with new Teams version
The logo of the communication platform MS Teams from Microsoft on a mobile phone. photo
© Debarchan Chatterjee/ZUMA Wire/dpa
The corona pandemic really gave the office chat software business a boost. Microsoft’s Teams is used by more than 280 million people. Now AI should also increase the pressure on the rival.
Microsoft has unveiled an improved version of its Teams office software that will increase competitive pressure on rival office chat provider Slack. The new version of Microsoft Teams forms the basis for the integration of new artificial intelligence functions, which the software group announced as “Copilot” in mid-March. The new Teams software is twice as fast and at the same time requires only half the storage space, Microsoft manager Jeff Teper wrote in a blog post on Monday.
Microsoft introduced Teams in 2017 to respond to the challenge posed by San Francisco startup Slack. The platform for office communication, which is designed to make tedious e-mail exchanges from traditional Office programs superfluous, quickly became popular with other start-ups after it was launched in 2013 and over time has also won over larger companies. In December 2020, Slack was acquired by cloud computing provider Salesforce for more than $27 billion.
Distance to rival increased further
According to Microsoft manager Teper, more than 280 million people currently use teams every month. This means that the communication and collaboration tool from Microsoft has already left its smaller competitor Slack far behind. According to industry estimates, Slack currently has 50 to 60 million users who actively use the service every month.
With the new Teams version, Microsoft is also mimicking a feature that Slack has offered for quite some time, namely the management of different accounts and profiles in the app. In this way, employees of a company can not only link their company account to Teams, but also other accounts, such as the Teams channel of a local sports club.
Microsoft plans to have the renewed Teams software generally available “later this year”. Business customers using Teams on a Windows machine can try the public preview released Monday. Later in the year, Microsoft will expand the pre-release to a broader group of customers, including those using Apple computers with the macOS operating system.
Microsoft press site for “Copilot”