Microsoft has just launched its own Slack – like service named Microsoft Teams. Facebook launched a similar service called Workplace by Facebook last month.
Microsoft Teams brings together people, conversations and content—along with the tools that teams need—so they can easily collaborate to achieve more.
According to Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for the Office team, “We built Microsoft Teams because we see both tremendous opportunity and tremendous change in how people and teams get work done. Teams are now more agile and organizational structures more flat to keep communications and information flowing. With Microsoft Teams, we aspire to create a more open, digital environment that makes work visible, integrated and accessible—across the team—so everyone can stay in the know.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKU-FMzZFF0
Microsoft Teams delivers on four core promises to create a digital workspace for high performing teams.
- First and foremost, Microsoft Teams provides a modern conversation experience for today’s teams. Microsoft Teams supports not only persistent but also threaded chats to keep everyone engaged.
- Second, Microsoft Teams brings together the full breadth and depth of Office 365 to provide a true hub for teamwork. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, OneNote, Planner, Power BI and Delve are all built into Microsoft Teams so people have all the information and tools they need at their fingertips.
- Third, since all teams are unique, Microsoft has invested deeply in ways for people to customize their workspace, with rich extensibility and open APIs available at general availability.
- Finally, Microsoft Teams provides the advanced security and compliance capabilities that Office 365 customers expect. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest.
Starting today, Microsoft Teams is available in preview in 181 countries and in 18 languages to commercial customers with Office 365 Enterprise or Business plans, with general availability expected in the first quarter of 2017.
