After years of experimentation, the tech giant IBM has decided to roll out Slack (a cloud-based workplace software platform) to its 3,50,000 employees present all over the world. The authorities at IBM were torn between two choices: Slack and Microsoft Teams. According to a report by BusinessInsider, IBM has picked Slack over Microsoft Teams.
The biggest advantage of using Microsoft Teams over any other remote workplace software is it readily integrates with Office 365 Suite. Microsoft’s other products like Word, Spreadsheets, PowerPoint, and many others can be used in sync with Teams. However, IBM does not use Microsoft’s products. Or not as much as other big tech companies do.
For its back-office operations, IBM has been using in-house products like IBM Notes and IBM Domino. IBM Notes is the client and IBM Domino being the server. IBM Notes is a collaborative client-server software platform–sold previously by IBM by the name Lotus Notes. Now it is acquired by HCL technologies. Hence, it doesn’t make much sense to ditch Notes for Office 365 Suite.
What Are the Key Differences Between Slack and Microsoft Teams?
The biggest factor when it comes to rolling out remote workplace software or any multi-user software is its cost per user. Microsoft Teams is available at $5 a user per month whereas, Slack can be purchased at $8 per user per month.
However, you don’t need to have any other paid software to go along with Slack. Slack integrates seamlessly with Google products like Doc, Sheets, Calendar and many others. In addition to this, Slack also has a Freemium version.
Microsoft Teams also integrates with other services and APIs. Its features are much more advanced and sophisticated than those of Slacks. Both the standalone and web version of Slack appears like a standard remote workplace software. You cannot open new tabs or browse the internet.
Once you are in the MS Teams interface, you don’t have to go anywhere else to look up for information. This increases productivity and eliminates distractions in employees. Users can have all the content in one place instead of jumping from one app to another.
Slack and IBM Employees Take on This Decision
Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield in a meeting with Business Insider said that “Going the wall to wall in IBM– it’s primarily the optimum scale that there is, so we now understand that Slack will help the largest companies in the world essentially.”
The authorities at Slack seem to be delighted with this opportunity to serve one of the world’s largest and oldest tech companies. This deal will not only help Slack’s market share growth in the upcoming years but also set them apart from other software firms working in the same domain.
Also Read- Finally Microsoft Office now available on Apple’s Mac App store
