Microsoft unveils Teams, a chat app for work, and Slack’s response is priceless

Microsoft unveiled today its “chat-based workspace” called Microsoft Teams. Sound familiar? I don’t blame you because apps like this have been coming and going for the past decade now. Well, Slack obviously sees the irony in all this as a key market player: the company published an open letter to Microsoft, and their sass is just savage.

The basic concept behind Microsoft Teams is nothing novel – it essentially wants to connect workers and render email an obsolete form of enterprise communication. Now, Microsoft-owned Skype is already used for that along with Outlook, but Teams takes it one step further: it is truly chat-centric with built-in access to Microsoft essentials like SharePoint, and it even lets you work on documents right within the app. As with any other chat app, you can customize each team to include all the features your team needs to access and use every day.

Now that you know what Microsoft Teams is, let’s get to Slack’s response to Microsoft’s unveiling. Slack, as you probably know, is a main player in enterprise communication. Among a myriad of chat applications, it managed to capture a significant amount of market share. I mean, this three-year-old company managed to get $200 million in funding just a few months ago at a $3.8 billion valuation. Slack clearly knows what it’s doing, to say the least, and that’s why they’ve take a moment to throw huge shade:

Dear Microsoft – Wow. Big news! Congratulations on today’s announcements. We’re genuinely excited to have some competition. We realized a few years ago that… every business would be using Slack, or “something just like it,” within the decade. It’s validating to see you’ve come around to the same way of thinking… However, all this is harder than it looks. So, as you set out to build “something just like it,” we want to give you some friendly advice…

You can read the full list of advice from Slack here, but the company is very clear on the fact that Slack is here to stay and compete with Microsoft Teams.

Obviously, given that many businesses use Microsoft Outlook and Office software already, Microsoft Teams may be easier to integrate than to install a separate app. So we’ll have to wait to see whether Microsoft will emerge as the winner amongst Slack, Facebook, and a slew of others.

If you want to try Microsoft Teams, click the link below: