MS Teams goes live on Office 365; Can it challenge Slack?

While much has been said and discussed about Microsoft’s new workplace communication service, Teams, the software giant has finally announced the general availability of the new tool. It is now available to Office 365 business customers in 181 markets and 19 languages. The company claims that since announcing the preview in November, more than 50,000 organizations have started using Microsoft Teams. But the question which has popped up is “Will Teams be a Slack-killer or an effective Slack competitor?” Naturally, with the already existing popularity of Slack among business organizations and media houses, this is a tough spot to compete for. But the company’s strides in adding next-gen tools and features adapting to the dynamic workforce might pay off well. Also read: Does Microsoft Teams gives Slack a tough combat? “In a world where information is abundant and human time and attention remain scarce, we aspire to help people and groups of people be more productive, wherever they are,” said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft.

“Office 365 is the broadest platform and universal toolkit for creation, collaboration and communication. Today we are adding a new tool to Office 365 with Microsoft Teams, a chat-based workspace designed to empower the art of teams,” announced Nadella.

What can Ofiice 365 users expect?

Office 365, as we know, is designed to meet the unique workstyle of every group with purpose-built, integrated applications. Be it Outlook for enterprise-grade email, SharePoint for intelligent content management, Yammer for networking across the organization or Skype for Business to handle voice and video. Now with the addition of Microsoft Teams in the suite, the company is aiming at bringing an enhanced meeting experience, with scheduling capabilities, mobile audio calling and video calling. The tool is available on Android now and coming soon to iOS and Windows Phone, along with email integration, and new security and compliance capabilities. The company has also delivered new features to make Teams accessible, such as support for screen readers, high contrast and keyboard-only navigation. Guest access capabilities and deeper integration with Outlook, and a richer developer platform are targeted for June of this year.