Mattermost, an open source B2B technology company, has officially entered the $30 billion collaboration market with a new collaboration tool to take on the likes of Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex Teams. As a secure, self-hosted and highly scalable solution, Mattermost is targeted at enterprises whose engineers need a messaging platform that lets them move at startup speed.
Mattermost suggests that Uber even dropped Slack to build their own messaging platform on Mattermost. Other customers on the Mattermost books include Amazon, Boeing, BMW, Ericsson, ING, Sharp and Tesla. Mattermost’s sweet spot is where the likes of Slack and Microsoft Teams fall short. The developer community is one that demands instant change, immediate product updates and flexible support – especially when it comes to security and privacy.
Mattermost enters the market
I spoke with Mattermost CEO, Ian Tien, to find out why Mattermost was a new name for me in the collaboration arena. Ian said that they have been majorly focussed in the developer community, rather than in mainstream Unified Comms. He referenced to functionality like voice, video and screen sharing as the commoditised first generation of Unified Comms.
“The next generation of collaboration is working with someone to creating something. The next level is about tools integration. Everyone wants to compete with tech giants”
Ian further explained the Mattermost focus in the enterprise developer community. “The only thing more important than developer productivity is security. Preventing breaches and privacy issues is the world we live in. These developer teams all want to integrate all these different tools and they need them to be flawless. If there’s one gap in the armour, it can be catastrophic”.
Security requirements
Mattermost is aligned to the side of information security teams who want to run the Mattermost source code through scanning tools and partner to make sure they have a platform that meets their needs. Ian told me:
“An open source platform lets enterprises adapt to their custom security, privacy and compliance requirements”
“With open source, there is a lot more flexibility and control. Enterprises that require a new feature usually suffer business delays. If you can’t do something this way rather than that way, there is a wait for the vendor to approve the new request. With open source, the developers have total control”.
Enterprise security, startup pace
Ian referenced the multitenant scenario when one customer breaks something and it has an impact on the entire Unified Comms platform. By using open source platforms, this is eradicated. Open source removes the risk for enterprises that cannot accept the concept of being down or impacted.
“Our customers can say everything happens in their private network and their data is literally in their database. We allow customers to do every element. It’s also MIT licensed so companies don’t need to go through procurement. Even the integrations will just work. You can import theme colours, teams or take a Mattermost URL and put it into a Slack integration and it will just work.
Mattermost has recently closed $20M in Series A funding, and looks set to be a real crowd pleaser in the open source and developer communities.
