Workplace by Facebook currently boasts 30,000 businesses using it’s services. That’s 30,000 businesses – not users. Workplace aims to boost that figure and has recognised security and customer trust as key dependencies for this. This is why Workplace looks set to move to its own domain. Workplace.com is current already in use as a landing page to sign up for the service. The plan for the domain is to make this the central point for all business interactions.
Existing customers have expressed concern that the current domain is hosted on the same domain as Facebook’s core business – the consumer platform. The news comes only a month after Flow, Workplace by Facebook’s inaugural leadership summit. This saw the addition of features like multi-party chat, voice and video calling and Safety Check for Business. These features were no doubt added to boost Workplace by Facebook’s appeal to the mid-market and enterprise. Recognition of core voice and security components play just a small part in moving Workplace by Facebook into the pure collaboration market. This is typically where we see vendors such as Cisco, Microsoft and RingCentral, who can offer most communications services through one platform.
Facebook in Business
We’ve previously covered the the stigma of using Facebook as a work tool. Since then, the platform has gained and retained notable customers such as Hootsuite, Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Oxfam.
Workplace by Facebook looks set to finally take on the big boys. This move draws a firm line between the consumer and business applications. There are already subtle differences between the two platforms. Workplace has a grey interface rather than blue, for example. However, the user experience is very much the one that users know and love. Workplace by Facebook’s biggest draw, by far, is that user training and adoption is far simpler than that of introducing a new collaboration platform.
Enterprise Security
The Workplace by Facebook team informed Walmart, potentially their largest customer, of the domain change on the same day that Facebook (consumer) disclosed a security breach that impacted millions of consumers. Potentially the biggest threat to enterprises in 2018 and the future is cyber security. Workplace by Facebook assured Walmart that no data was breached on their business platform. The news that consumer Facebook suffered a security breach may have forced the decision to split the Workplace and Facebook domains.
In a short space of weeks, big names like Cisco and Facebook have suffered security vulnerabilities. Despite the statement around Walmart being informed of the security breach, Workplace by Facebook insist the migration was already in planning.
A spokesperson for Workplace told UC Today:
“As part of Workplace’s brand evolution we are migrating to our own domain. This move has been in the works for nearly a year and we are planning to migrate customers to Workplace.com in 2019”.
What happens next for Workplace by Facebook?
There is no set date for Workplace to leave the Facebook domain. The current workplace.com domain remains the welcome page for new customers. Following migrations, and vigorous security mitigation, Workplace by Facebook expects to begin using the new domain for its customers in 2019.
