Chasing Slack and cloud sales, Microsoft’s Teams targets big-Office customers

Microsoft Corp officially rolled out its Teams workplace-collaboration software, counting on

integration with its ubiquitous Office and Outlook programs and partnerships with popular

business software makers such as SAP to challenge Slack Technologies Inc for big corporate

customers.

Teams, in preview mode since November, is now widely available in 181 markets, Microsoft

said. Already 50,000 Office 365 customers, including Expedia Inc and Alaska Air Group Inc,

have started trying it. Expedia has its 300-person information technology group using Teams

to chat, share presentations and hold teleconferences.

“I really appreciate the tight integration with Office 365,” said Armand Campo, senior

director of information technology for online travel-booking service Expedia. Campo said he

also likes that the software works equally well on a Mac and a PC. While the company will

offer Teams to about 18,000 employees starting in the second quarter, some also use rival

products like Slack and Atlassian Corp's HipChat, he said.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft needs to do well in this fast-growing market because a

sizable part of corporate e-mail traffic – where the company dominates – is moving to chat,

where Slack and HipChat were pioneers. More importantly, Microsoft sees Teams as a way to

push more of its clients to switch from traditional, on-premise Office software to the

subscription-based cloud version, Office 365. Cloud software provides Microsoft a more

regular revenue stream and greater sales over time, the company said. Teams is available

only to paying customers of Office 365.

“We can do more for our customers in the cloud than on-premise,” said Rajesh Jha, whom chief

executive officer Satya Nadella tapped to run the Office group in September. Jha said the

new program is speeding up the switch to Office 365 for some customers. When clients see

Teams and weigh the pros and cons, they say, “probably I should move sooner rather than

later,” he said.

Teams has several design elements that are different from Slack's, including the ability to

put different applications and tasks in tabs located across the top of the screen. For

example, users can add a tab that takes then directly to their Excel spreadsheets or third-

party apps like Zenefits human-resources software and Polly, a service that collects data

via recurring employee polls.

Outside companies can also build chatbots for Teams, like they can for Slack, or direct

content from their programs to flow directly into discussions so users can have things like

tweets appear in their chats. SAP SE's SuccessFactors and Atlassian Corp's Trello are also

working with Microsoft to let data from their programs be viewed and shared in Teams.

Since the preview, the company has added 100 new features, such as making it easier to

schedule meetings. Microsoft is planning to add about 100 more in the next three months,

including allowing guest access for users outside the company. Future upgrades will improve

integration with Microsoft's Outlook e-mail program.

“Unlike Slack, we don't believe e-mail is going to die or that our job is to eliminate it,”

said Brian MacDonald, one of Teams' two co-creators. “It may need to be right-sized because

it is being used for things it was never intended for.”

Slack, meanwhile, has made its own changes to become more competitive in wooing the massive

customers Microsoft is targeting. In January, it introduced Enterprise Grid, a version of

its popular product designed for companies with thousands of workers.

MacDonald and Teams co-creator Mira Lane also focused on enabling clients to add and

customise short video clips and cartoons, making it easy enough for older users and also

appealing to younger ones. Many of Microsoft's enterprise customers are trying to cater to

workforces that span four different generations, Lane said.

One accomplishment the creators were particularly proud of: they got Nadella to use Giphy, a

library for finding animated .gif files, which he mainly employed via Teams to send “good

work"-type messages to the development group, Lane said.

So far Teams' main rivals say the competition from Microsoft isn't hurting them.

“Slack created this category and we’re confident in the calibre of our product,” the company

said in a statement. “It’s not surprising that there are other entrants to the space: the

business opportunity is huge.”

HipChat also said it hadn't seen any impact.

“We have not heard from any of our customers that they are testing out the beta of Teams,”

HipChat general manager Steve Goldsmith said in a statement. “Teams – like the whole Office

suite – is handed down from IT to their users,” he said. “The actual team doesn't really

have much say in purchasing or evaluating it.”

But what HipChat sees as a fla

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