To clarify reports we've seen all over the place, IBM is outfitting the rest of its employees with the use of Slack's collaboration software, not adding 350,000 new seats, as previously and ambiguously reported. Hours after the announcement of IBM choosing Slack to support its fleet of 350,000 employees, Slack stocks rose by more than 15 percent, following reports of the news. Today, Slack's stocks have taken a near eight percent nosedive.
The collaboration company filed an official notice to shareholders, subsequently downplaying reports that would IBM adding 350,000 seats to its platform, choosing Slack over Microsoft Teams. Slack said in the SEC filing, "IBM has been Slack's largest customer for several years now and has expanded its usage of Slack over that time." The full statement from Slack's filing is as follows:
"On February 10, 2020, a Business Insider article was published about Slack Technologies, Inc. (“Slack”). The article stated that International Business Machines Corporation (“IBM”) purchased Slack for all of its employees worldwide and further that IBM is Slack’s largest customer to date. IBM has been Slack's largest customer for several years and has expanded its usage of Slack over that time. Slack is not updating its financial guidance for the fourth quarter of the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020, or for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2020."
In an email statement to UC Today, Slack further clarified:
"A small group of 68 engineers within IBM started using Slack"
The company added, "In 2019, following the launch of Enterprise Grid, of which IBM was one of the first users, that number grew to from 165,000, to over 300,000 which was reported in a blog post. Today, Slack maintains, IBM has more than 300,000 users on the platform and will soon deploy Slack company-wide.
