U.S. – Microsoft Inc. (NASDAQ: MSFT) will compete against the likes of Slack with its own “Microsoft Teams.” The company could either announce its launch on November 2 at Microsoft Office event in New York or on October 26 at a Windows 10 event.
Like Slack, Microsoft Teams – former Skype Teams – will be a workgroup chat that will offer “channels” different teams can use to talk, and it will come with standard group chat functions like image and document support, calendars and team organization.
As a plus, the upcoming solution will integrate with Microsoft’s other products, notably Office 365, OneNote, OneDrive, and Skype so that it could be the optimal solution for customers and enterprises using those platforms.
Mspoweruser.com leaked the information. The site also shared the logo of the app and a screenshot showing how it would look.
Meanwhile, teams.Microsoft domain already features a download button for the app. The option redirects to a URL saying the user has no permission to view the directory.
How will Microsoft Teams compete with Slack?
Teams will include a feature lacking on Slack: support for threaded conversations, in which people could reply a comment as a Facebook comment thread. Anyone else may join the conversation whenever they want.
Furthermore, Slack’s future rival will allow users to hold video and audio calls right from the app, including the ability to host video calls with multiple people at the same time. Skype will probably power up this feature.
The corporate messaging app will have an Activity tab to see latest notifications, the Chat bar to check conversations, the Meetings tab to find calendars and schedules, and the Files tab to upload from One Drive of Office 365.
Teams will also have a friendly catalog of GIFs, memes, and emojis. Users can add more to the selection.
Yammer was Microsoft’s Facebook for work
If it all sounds familiar, it is because the company failed in a similar experiment a couple of years ago.
There was a startup called Yammer, and Microsoft advertised it as a Facebook for work. Microsoft bought it in 2012 for $1.2 billion, integrated Yammer into Office 365 and a feature called Office 365 Groups.
Yammer still exists, and it looks very similar to the leaked photos of Microsoft Teams. Besides Yammer, the tech company also holds SharePoint and Skype for Business, but none of them have proven to be very attractive for work-teams.
The new chat service comes after several reports saying Microsoft executive VP Qi Lu wanted to buy Slack for $8 billion last spring.
The media suggests neither founder Bill Gates nor CEO Satya Nadella agreed with the idea. Ironically, Li Yu left Microsoft in September citing health reasons.
Source: MS Poweruser
