One of the communications industry’s two leading enterprise messaging platforms isn’t cutting its rival, MS Teams, any slack.
Forgive us the pun. Slack, broadly known as the runner-up to Microsoft’s MS Teams offering for internal office communications, is petitioning the European Commission, accusing Microsoft of unfair competitive behavior.
Looking at the substance of Slack’s arguments, we find allegations that Microsoft forced the install of MS Teams, tying it to Microsoft Office enterprise suites. There’s also the claim that Microsoft made it hard to remove the program after it was installed.
Slack also contends that at Microsoft ‘hid the true operating costs’ of MS Teams, which is important to companies as they try to decide which platform to use in the wake of coronavirus closures that have ported so much business activity online.
So how do Slack and MS Teams measure up? There are some similarities and some differences. Both of them have automated bots to help with chatting and messaging tasks.
One common distinction is that many experts find Slack to be better for ease of use, and more effective for smaller offices, while proponents of MS Teams point to its utility in broader corporate networks and the range of features that it offers.
“By far, the biggest difference between the two apps is that Slack is easier to set up and administrate,” writes Mile Zivkovic at Chanty. “On the other hand, Microsoft Teams is designed for larger enterprise companies and its setup is more complex. In return, it offers excellent integrations with Office 365 applications. However, if integrations are your primary concern for your team chat app, Slack is the clear winner since it integrates with every other tool under the sun.”
Is it below the belt for Microsoft to tie a newer service to its traditional Microsoft Office suite? We’ll see what European courts decide. In the meantime, this is part of the news around Microsoft that may help you to make decisions on this blue-chip tech holding.
