Microsoft announced it would separate Teams from Microsoft 365 and Office 365 worldwide to defuse a European Commission investigation into the competitive practices of its telecom rival. slack.
It’s clear that Slack pulled the rug out from under Teams, the culmination of years of continued heel-snapping and a blow to Microsoft’s comprehensive software suite offering. But amid Teams’ continued success, there’s every indication that Slack’s victory is a minor one, and that we won’t be able to capitalize on it as much as we’d like.
Depending on how you look at it, Slack’s grievances against Microsoft in the 2020 EU competition were driven by free market interests or simple corporate gunfire. Whatever the impetus, the Salesforce-owned workplace productivity platform seemed to think it was well-positioned to benefit Microsoft through this move. It takes just three sentences to summarize the complaints filed by the company in 2020.
“While we are confident that we are winning on the merits of our products, we cannot ignore illegal activity that deprives our customers of access to the tools and solutions they desire.” I have written Jonathan Prince, VP of Communications and Policy at Slack.
The filing has an air of competition, as Slack has worked hard to position itself as both a competitor to Teams and a victim of illegal market domination by Microsoft. Masu. However, as separation approaches and the next choice is forced, Slack and Teams On the front lines, Slack has yet to offer a compelling vision as a usurper of Teams.
Slack bit off more than it could chew
The push and pull over the Teams issue has been going on since the first submission asking the EU to take a critical look at the presence of Teams built into Microsoft’s Office 365 productivity software. This is the result of Microsoft forcibly installing Teams on millions of systems in a move that will allow it to use its market power to “annihilate” competition in the productivity software space. he argues that Slack is.
Microsoft continues its efforts to outdo regulators by further separating Teams from the Office 365 suite, announcing that it will now sell Teams separately around the world.
This was announced just a short time after we announced that this was going to happen. Disconnect Teams from Microsoft 365 The move is aimed at avoiding a protracted regulatory battle over Slack’s antitrust claims, especially in Europe.
Some might expect Slack to be taking a victory lap, having pushed Microsoft’s hand not just locally but on the global stage. But with Teams’ continued success, it remains to be seen whether the company has benefited from its success.
The platform’s popularity has barely waned since Teams was separated from its Office 365 counterpart, and data from Sensor Tower is shared. Reuters There has been little change in the size of our user base. Sensor Tower estimates the number of monthly active users of the Microsoft Teams mobile app to be roughly flat at 19 million between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024.
Slack will need to work hard if it wants to increase its market share. Competing with a rival with such longstanding control and stature in productivity software is no easy task.
When the company first called for action from the EU, it positioned itself as an antidote to Teams and described it as a threat to Microsoft’s “hold on business email” and “locked down enterprise software.”
“Slack provides an open and flexible approach that increases the threat to Microsoft because it is the gateway to innovative, best-in-class technology that competes with the rest of Microsoft’s stack,” Prince wrote at the time. There is.
Slack offers flexibility, the company claims. This includes thousands of third-party app integrations and sales force Along with improved compatibility with the ecosystem, Google workspace.
This is what Slack ultimately needs to rely on to compete with Microsoft. With Teams being decoupled from Office 365, businesses may be willing to pay an additional $5.25 (£4.20) and use this opportunity to consider the benefits of alternative communication platforms. But this leaves little room for effort, and Slack needs to build on its unique advantages.
Recent efforts Slack AIwhich users can deploy to generate channel summaries, answer personalized questions, and summarize threads, is also at odds with Slack. microsoft copilot It’s built into Teams by default. Copilot is supported by OpenAI’s flagship model GPT-4, this doesn’t seem like a battle that Slack can win on performance alone. To succeed in his AI space, Slack will leverage its reputation as an ecosystem-agnostic operator, emphasize Microsoft’s more closed-door approach, and double down on its promise to keep data securely in the hands of businesses. There is a need.
Microsoft is evading regulators so far
Prince’s original text takes pains to assure readers that this issue is “much bigger than Slack vs. Microsoft,” and further frames this whole fiasco as a battle over the future of the digital ecosystem, viz. It is described as a battle of “Gateway vs. Gatekeeper.”
It’s certainly not controversial to say that Microsoft and competitor complaints are closely related. As of this writing, regulators in Europe and elsewhere are ramping up investigations into the company’s other potentially anticompetitive operations.
Hyperscalers are Both countries have been criticized by the European Commission. and the British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) There is an ongoing struggle for the supposed advantages in the field of cloud computing. Survey on Microsoft’s OpenAI investment.
But so far, Microsoft has fought every regulatory attack with all its might, updating its products to reflect the new situation rather than simply complying with regulatory requirements. In Europe, for example, we introduced a new, cheaper 365 product lineup that doesn’t include Teams, as well as a standalone Teams product for enterprise customers.
Slack can’t project itself as a champion of the free market for communications platforms without backing this up with raw performance.
Because of its role as a competing enterprise software provider, it makes sense that Slack would pursue regulatory complaints in the name of defending market fairness. Although the company’s objectives are commercial in nature, it is not enough to create a vacuum in the area of productivity.
On its current course, Slack seems doomed to fail in its mission to overthrow Microsoft’s reigning overlord. The rules of the roost for Teams don’t seem to be changing, so Slack will need to offer a more compelling alternative to change the dial among enterprise customers.