Fast Company rates Microsoft most innovative company due to Teams's success, leaving some Slack-jawed

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Fast Company has awarded Microsoft the title of the Most Innovative Company of 2020 in the category of the Workplace.  The company won the title specifically for the success of their Microsoft Teams collaboration project, with Fast Company saying:

“It’s hard to argue with Microsoft’s dominance: Teams has more than 20 million daily users, with 91 of the Fortune 100 utilizing the platform. Last year’s improvements included greater AI integration, as well as additional tools for first-line workers (those working in people-facing positions, like doctors, or service industry employees).”

The award would come as a slap in the face to Slack, who has been having an increasingly tense relationship with Microsoft, despite welcoming the company to the business collaboration market in 2016 by saying they were “genuinely excited to have some competition”.

These days, instead, Slack is accusing Microsoft of “surprising unsportsman-like behaviour”, and threatening formal anti-trust complaints.

Microsoft may have won some goodwill towards their product with their response to Covid-19 by making numerous premium features of Microsoft Teams available for free, allowing even small companies to effectively work from home, and therefore reduce the exposure of their employees to the deadly virus.

Last year, Microsoft Teams won best of enterprise connect overall award for the second year in a row.

Today, Microsoft announced that Teams is now used by 91 of the 100 largest companies in USA, and Microsoft said they saw a 500% increase in Teams’ usage, following the recent push for employees to work from home.

Read more about how collaboration drives innovation at Microsoft at Fast company here.

More about the topics: Microsoft Teams, Slack