Slack (WORK) is putting its rivalry with Microsoft (MSFT -1.32%) aside, announcing its working to integrate its digital chat and collaboration tool with Microsoft’s Teams.
During a conference call with Wall Street firm RBC, covered by CNBC, Slack co-founder, and CEO Stewart Butterfield said Slack is developing voice technology to integrate with Teams. Once it's completed Slack users will be able to make calls directly to Team users without leaving the platform.
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Slack’s CEO didn’t say when the integration will be ready but it does highlight how important digital collaboration tools and video conferencing is becoming as millions of people work-at-home amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Those moves on the part of corporations around the globe have been driving huge demand for Slack, Teams and Zoom Video (ZM -0.55%), the video conferencing startup.
Since the end of January Microsoft’s Teams has seen a 500% increase in usage in China alone. In the U.S. demand is surging as well. Microsoft said last week Teams has more than 44 million daily users, with it growing by about 12 million users in just seven days. Those users have generated more than 900 million meetings and calling minutes on Teams daily. Slack hasn’t said how many users it’s gained since the pandemic started but the company did say it’s seeing unprecedented demand.
Slack launched in 2014, two years before Microsoft Teams, but the latter has proven popular among business customers, particularly larger enterprises. Slack is already integrated with Microsoft Office including OneDrive, Outlook, and Sharepoint, noted CNBC.
