Thursday, December 08, 2016

Slack is becoming more deeply intertwined with Google Drive - The Verge

Check Slack + Google: Partners at work (Slack blog) for integration details. I'm assuming the Google Drive bot integration points, in our wonderful world of open standards and published APIs, will also eventually work with Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Facebook; e.g., see Message.io Partners with Microsoft to Translate Bots to Microsoft Teams Platform (Message.io press release)

"There is a more subtle reason Slack may be courting Google as its primary partner. The startup recently had a public dispute with Microsoft, which just launched a Slack competitor called Microsoft Teams. In an escalating of tensions, Slack published a full-page ad in The New York Times in the spirit of Apple’s infamous 1981 welcome letter to IBM after the corporate giant entered the PC race. The move was evidence that Slack leadership felt Microsoft had stepped into its territory. And while Apple’s original ad was designed to patronize IBM by highlighting its late arrival, Slack’s effort may have cast itself as a vulnerable startup overtly concerned with being crushed by a free alternative.

For Microsoft, of course, Google is much more of a competitor than Slack. In that scenario, Google Drive is the dangerous free alternative to Microsoft’s Office 365 product, the very same subscription that nets more than 85 million Office users a free ticket to its Teams app. So it would seem Slack is more interested in cozying up to Google than indirectly making it easier to use Microsoft products in the workplace."
Slack is becoming more deeply intertwined with Google Drive - The Verge

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