Dive Brief:
- Microsoft Teams is expected to see the most growth among the leading collaborative chat apps in the next two years, according to survey data released Wednesday by Spiceworks. The report included 448 respondents from North America and Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
- Skype for Business is currently the most widely-adopted enterprise chat app, followed by Google Hangouts and Slack. But Microsoft Teams will quickly grow over the next few years to move into the number two spot by the end of 2018, surpassing both Slack and Google Hangout.
- Slack is considered the most innovative chat app, while Skype for Business is considered the leader in security, manageability and reliability, Spiceworks found.
Dive Insight:
Over the last two years, chat apps and collaboration tools have made huge inroads into the enterprise, and demand doesn’t appear ready for a slow-down. More than half of IT pros surveyed by Spiceworks said such apps are "critical to their organization’s success."
Though Slack has a huge number of loyal followers, experts tend to agree it wasn’t truly built with the enterprise in mind, and that’s where Microsoft, with its reputation as a trusted business provider, may find its sweet spot and overtake Slack.
The chat app industry will also likely continue to see consolidation over the next few years. On Tuesday, Atlassian Corp., maker of Jira and HipChat, announced it would acquire Trello, which offers a project management app, for $425 million.
