Despite EU complaint, Slack says they do not face serious competition from Microsoft

In 2020 Slack, which now belongs to SalesForce, complained to the EU about Microsoft bundling Teams with Microsoft 365, and a year later, in 2021, the competition regulator started a preliminary investigation into the issue.

It, therefore, comes as somewhat of a surprise that Slack feels it does not face serious competition from Microsoft.

The company’s SVP & General Manager EMEA, Pip White, told TechRadar Pro that when it came to the two products,  “it’s not necessarily an apples to apples comparison”.

Slack felt it has several unique selling points, including asynchronous collaboration, (which lets users communicate video  voice and video snippets without being available at the same time),  short and spontaneous huddles via Slack Huddles in place of time-hungry meetings, and rich third-party integrations.

The company is most proud of Slack WorkFlow Builder which makes it easy to develop automations using Lego-like blocks that can be chained together via a simple drag-and-drop mechanism, which means workers can create their own tools without getting IT involved.

If the blocks are not sufficient, IT can custom code new ones, which then becomes available to everyone else in the organization.

“We see the ability to bring work into channel as a key differentiator for us. The way in which most of our customers are starting to use Slack in anger, so to speak, is all about the ability to collaborate endlessly from one process to another,” she said.

Slack says they are best set up for the new style of hybrid working and continued, saying:

“It was also about where we are in the world right now, in terms of the way people are thinking about different ways of working. Slack presents a really interesting opportunity at the forefront of that transformation.”