@rrhoover Yeah. It is going to be interesting to watch as Slack, FB, and MS go head to head in this space. The piece that MS has that no one else in this group has is relationships with large enterprise accounts; those companies are already using and deploying MS products. Teams can become a feature or essentially one more product listed on an enterprise sales agreement. Buying and deploying Slack is a new product, new partner, new procurement process for these large enterprise customers. Add on to the fact that Microsoft operates subsidiaries in nearly every country in the world - where Slack is just building out their enterprise business. I am excited for the competition - competition is good. Consumers / Users win in that scenario. And I really believe Slack could be the winner - their product is fantastic! I just would not discount Microsoft's ability to do amazing work and ultimately play a role in pushing this space forward. I will definitely be watching this all very, very closely.

@corleyh @rrhoover I'd also throw in a potential entrance into the game by the Big G, who has done quite well with small and medium businesses with Google Apps (or G Suite as they seem to call it these days). They could be really significant players in this if they so choose to enter the fray.

@sandrojazzar I am. I think FB may see growth from less developed countries where their digital life is done 100% on the phone and starts with FB. FB is consumer first. I was at MS when the shift was made from a consumer company to an enterprise one...its hard. FB can totally do it, but its not their strength nor is it their primary focus. Whereas the Enterprise is where MS now leads the back. And this is Slack's business. So, yes - I am discounting FB in this space. Just like I discounted Goggle+ when it launched. (Different products, but some underlying logic).

@rrhoover @corleyh I wonder how the paradigm of IRC can work with Entreprise. It's already pretty difficult to make sense of Slack's overload of information. I can't imagine how that works with 500 people but a day spent scrolling the app instead of actually getting stuff done. I'd love to see something really new in the team communication space.

@hfauq @rrhoover I can imagine channels would have to be really well thought through and people would have to be disciplined about what they join. Setting your notifications properly would be important. It's super interesting to think about.

@conwayanderson i completely agreed. Feels over designed and not very conversational at all. Feels more like a bulletin board.

@nathansudds they do always hint at adding it in slack but its not there yet :(

@ryanamurphy Looks like something to learn when launching a product. I cannot log in with my account, "You are not authorized to view this resource".

@leonelmore I'm sure it works on their machine though.

@robguilfoyle I think MSFT followed the thought process of Instagram. They could either be SUPER late to market with a clearly inferior product, or base it on what is going well in market and then tune it according to their own IP. Does this make people like what they are doing? No, but if you're stuck using a MSFT stack at work (lets say Slack isn't allowed), this is a highly preferable option. https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/0...

@robguilfoyle I guess it's like saying General Motors ripped off Ford a hundred years ago... it doesn't feel good at the time to have a competitor to something very unique (like Slack, like the first car, etc.) pop up, but years down the line (or maybe even months), everyone will be better off because of it. Running a small business, I (happily!) pay Slack thousands of dollars a year: if there's an alternative that can save my company and investors money, it behooves me to take advantage of it. Not to mention that while Slack did something amazing (and continues to), they don't own a monopoly on innovation in enterprise messaging; it's not a romantic startup story, but the product managers and engineers at big bad Microsoft have just as much to contribute as a small company does, you just have to believe!

@bobkevin I don't think Microsoft's goal here is to get existing Slack users to switch to Microsoft Teams. They are probably going after large enterprises that just won't use Slack because of their strict security restrictions. These companies are already existing Office 365 customers so it would be a great addition to the stuff that they are already paying for. Why should a large company pay for Slack when they can get this free with their existing Office 365 subscription? Plus, it has all the normal Microsoft security you would expect, crazy integration with OneDrive for business etc. It appeals to a certain kind of customer that isn't already using Slack but would like something similar. There are a lot of companies that fit this description that are already Microsoft customers. It just makes sense that Microsoft released Teams.

@palavalli @bobkevin I agree. There is still a huge market out there for team collaboration within large organizations – Slack works well for small to medium size teams only. I agree, offering this as a bonus to existing Office 365 is huge! This product seems to have a lot of potential to move into a space with very few competitors (even FB's Workplace isn't really the same).

@maxwell_nelson my guess is that it'll have tighter integration with the MS ecosystem. Check out that "meetings" tab on the far left.. add in stronger sync with office365 and this seems pretty compelling for an enterprise.

@afhill I just don't know what office365 or really any MS based product has over its competitors. Slack is so good. Google docs are so good. Gmail is so good. I guess at an older company where everyone is on office365 this makes sense but for any modern small medium or large company these products just seem like they've lost any sort of competitive edge. I could be totally wrong but that's the way I see it right now.

@maxwell_nelson its more about the ecosystem than specific product features. According to Gardner research from earlier this year, Office 365 still has more market penetration than GSuite. (8.5% of publicly traded companies use Office365, compared to 4.7% for GSuite) http://www.computerweekly.com/ne... Slack may be a great point solution, but bundles and single-vendor solutions can be pretty compelling to an IT buyer