Microsoft Teams could soon be as significant as internet browsers and operating systems, Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, has claimed.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Nadella highlighted Teams’ relentless growth over recent years, which has seen its daily active users climb from 13 million in July 2019 to 115 million in September last year.
The chief exec said that Teams is morphing beyond a communication tool and becoming an “organising layer” by acting as a hub for other Microsoft services.
He claimed it is this ethos that’s building Teams into a platform that could rival internet browsers and operating system in terms of their importance to businesses – also likening it to WeChat in China.
WeChat reportedly has more than 1.2 billion monthly active users and spans across chat, video, voice, mobile payments, gaming and web browsing.
“In China, WeChat is the internet; that’s a great example,” Nadella said.
“There isn’t a western equivalent. If anything, Teams is probably the closest when it comes to the work area.”
The way Microsoft has rolled out Teams since its launch 2017 has drawn criticism from competitors.
Slack, in particular, claims that Microsoft’s bundling of Teams into Office 365 amounts to anti-competitive behaviour – and has launched a lawsuit in an attempt to prove it.
The FT quoted Nadella as firing back at Slack and Salesforce, saying:
“I think they should probably look at themselves in the mirror before they shoot their mouth off”
