Slack trolls Microsoft hard
Slack has a message for Microsoft: Game on.
The startup took out a full-page ad in the New York Times on Wednesday to respond, preemptively, to Microsoft's expected launch of Skype Teams, a new software product for workplace and team collaboration that will compete directly with Slack. Microsoft's event is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. ET.
The ad, which was also posted online, welcomes Microsoft as a competitor before launching into four points of advice for the tech giant. Slack uses those points as opportunities for both self-congratulation and backhanded slams of Microsoft. For instance, after praising the "thoughtfulness and craftsmanship" in Slack's user experience, the ad says such traits are not common in enterprise software, Microsoft's traditional forté.
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The other points follow a similar pattern, culminating in a promise that "Slack is here to stay." It's signed "Your friends at Slack."
Here's the full ad:
Slack was founded in 2009, and it launched its signature collaboration software in 2013. It boasts more than 4 million daily active users and up to 2.5 million simultaneous users. Many digital media companies, including Mashable, switched to using Slack from other types of collaboration software.
Microsoft acquired Yammer, which made workplace collaboration software, back in 2012, but little has apparently come of that acquisition. Yammer's user experience more closely resembled social networks like Facebook as opposed to Slack's more chat-like experience.
This story was updated on 11/2/2016 at 11:51 a.m. with current user metrics from Slack.
Topics Microsoft
Pete Pachal was Mashable’s Tech Editor and had been at the company from 2011 to 2019. He covered the technology industry, from self-driving cars to self-destructing smartphones.Pete has covered consumer technology in print and online for more than a decade. Originally from Edmonton, Canada, Pete first uploaded himself into technology journalism at Sound & Vision magazine in 1999. Pete also served as Technology Editor at Syfy, creating the channel's technology site, DVICE (now Blastr), out of some rusty HTML code and a decompiled coat hanger. He then moved on to PCMag, where he served as the site's News Director.Pete has been featured on Fox News, the Today Show, Bloomberg, CNN, CNBC and CBC.Pete holds degrees in journalism from the University of King's College in Halifax and engineering from the University of Alberta in Edmonton. His favorite Doctor Who monsters are the Cybermen.
