Continuing the seemingly never-ending saga between Slack and Microsoft, Slack accused Microsoft of copying its ads. With the recent announcement of 20 million active daily users, Microsoft Teams is officially the leading team collaboration tool on the market. At the ripe age of two-years-old, Teams has yet again surpassed Slack’s daily active user figures. In the past, Slack has accused Microsoft of padding its numbers and said their numbers weren’t representative of its actual amount of daily active users.
Making fun of Microsoft’s senior status in the collaboration field, Slack called Microsoft out on its ads in a recent Tweet, where they used a term rising in popularity amongst Millennials, “Ok, Boomer.” The term has is widely used by those in my generation – ones clearly annoyed with Baby Boomers. In the Tweet, Slack pointed out the parallels between their ad for an April conference, more recent videos, as well as Microsoft’s ad called “The Art of Teamwork.”
You be the Judge
I am going to remain neutral here, and let you decide for yourself. Is Slack just making noise, or are the videos actually similar? No matter the conclusion you come to, Slack is great at drawing media attention to itself. They also want to unequivocally tell Microsoft – they aren’t going down without a challenge.
ok boomer pic.twitter.com/NB617NDFLV
— Slack (@SlackHQ) November 21, 2019
One thing is for sure, Microsoft has more daily active users, but Slack has continually called them out – pointing to their user engagement figures, which they recently released. In the past, Slack CEO, Stewart Butterfield, has thrown some serious shade at Microsoft, even going so far as to say – he thinks Microsoft sees Slack as an “existential threat.”
There’s More to Collab than Slack and Teams
In 2019, we spent a lot of time focusing on giants in the collaboration space, but there is a lot of competition out there. Both Slack and Microsoft face countless eager startups with solid offerings, along with some bigger players starting to emerge with diverse collaboration offerings. Nonetheless, it seems, at least for now, that Microsoft Teams will continue its reign over the market.
Collaboration companies of all sizes are beefing up their systems to compete with the likes of Teams and Slack, and some have technology offerings that can hold their own. What is missing in most cases, is the massive brand recognition Microsoft and Slack both have.
I Predict More on this Feud in 2020
Alright, I am calling it now. This is likely not the end of this rivalry unless some unforeseen variable appears out of nowhere with a collaboration offering so unbelievable, it blows Teams, and Slack, out of the water. I can’t see that happening, so I am sure we can expect to see more of these two bickering their way well into 2020.
What are your thoughts on the Slack-Microsoft beef? Do you think Slack is just trying to create media buzz, or are they genuinely annoyed by Microsoft? Leave us your comments in the section below. I will add, the whole thing is fairly odd to me, and slightly resembles that of the David and Goliath story. Only this time – it is almost certain the giant (Microsoft) will come out on top every time.
