Dive Brief:

• Microsoft Teams announced for the first time its daily and weekly user numbers, 13 million and 19 million, respectively, in a company announcement Thursday.
• The company unveiled two features to be rolled out later this month, including priority notifications for time-sensitive messages and read receipts. 
• Other features for team management were released, including highlighting announcements in channels and channel moderation. A targeted communication tool, used to communicate with workers in a specific role, was also added.

Dive Insight:

Teams' daily user count mostly puts the two companies neck and neck as Slack has more than 10 million daily active users as of January. 

Before this week, Microsoft only revealed how many organizations used Teams — 500,000 by March. At the time, Slack's user base was about 585,000, when combined with customers who either paid for services or used the free version. Teams' 500,000 organizations were all paying for the collaboration tool. 

The ease of access Microsoft customers have to Teams represents Slack's greatest threat. When a company purchases the Office bundle, Teams is in the collaboration software. Teams has the ability to take the guesswork out of choosing a collaboration tool for companywide use. Bundling is a Microsoft strength. 

The emphasis on the Teams' free factor is one that hit Slack particularly close to home. Slack's freemium subscription and quick sign up process was its original "x-factor," two features Teams now boasts too. 

However, Slack is rounding out its portfolio with offerings like the Enterprise Grid version. Slack is also a vendor-neutral tool that makes integrations simpler and vendor lock-in less of a concern.