The enterprise messaging wars continue
Tags: Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, Cisco, Slack, Messaging

Back in July 2018, Wired ran the headline “The Office-Messaging Wars Are Over. Slack Has Won.” This was in response to Atlassian striking a deal for Slack to inherit their HipChat and Stride customers.

Feb 15th 2019 was the date given for Atlassian customers to find a new home. The obvious choice was to migrate to Slack. This short deadline posed a problem for some enterprises. Businesses of a certain size have change control procedures and major projects on the go. So, a messaging migration wasn’t on the agenda. But, before the migration comes the shopping and the due diligence. Rightly, questions were asked.

Is Slack right for my business? What about Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex Teams? How do I find and deploy a messaging platform by February 2019?

Messaging wars begin

Mio CEO, Tom Hadfield, responded with his own take on the Slack and Atlassian partnership. Tom wrote “While Slack may have won the Office Messaging Wars of 2014–2017, the Enterprise Messaging Wars of 2018–2020 are only just beginning.”

Tom suggested we were only on episode 5 of 20 of Game of Messaging Thrones. With the arrival of Microsoft, Google and Cisco on Slack’s home turf , Tom correctly predicted that was more to come.

Game of messaging thrones

The rise and rise of Microsoft Teams

To declare the messaging wars were over, only two weeks after Microsoft announced a free version of Microsoft Teams was a bold statement. We only had to wait two further weeks to learn that Microsoft had officially named Slack as a competitor.

Towards the end of 2019, Spiceworks revealed results of their latest business chat apps study. They showed that Skype for Business is still number one with 44% use across 900 businesses surveyed. Music to Microsoft’s ears was that Microsoft Teams was second on the list — only two years after it’s formal launch.

Covering other vendors in the market, the study also revealed expected adoption by the end of 2020:

53% Skype for Business

41% Microsoft Teams

18% Slack

12% Google Hangouts.

1% Workplace by Facebook

Microsoft steals the limelight

Needless to say, these results triggered a raft of articles. Marian McHugh of CRN Channel Web went as far as to say that Microsoft Teams had stolen the limelight from Slack and usurped the collaboration crown.

Perhaps the most topical view topical view in the messaging wars debate is that of Agile IT who suggest that HipChat users are better of with Microsoft Teams, rather than Slack as the natural replacement.

Their comparison of the two messaging players broke down key features that were of importance to HipChat users. Whilst on point for the HipChat community, this was merely one of many articles comparing Microsoft Teams and Slack.

Tim Gelardi, Senior Industry Analyst at MZA, told me he thinks:

“It’s going to be a big year for Microsoft Teams. They will continue to be the main blocker to many of the other solutions getting a foothold in organisations.”

Slack vs Microsoft Teams

Google Hangouts & co

The next biggest name on the Spiceworks list was Google Hangouts. This is surprising as Cisco Webex Teams boasts a whole host of customers — fairassumption is they were not included in the Spiceworks survey.

Google has had strange couple of months. Seemingly, all was quiet on the messaging front. Then, stories around Google Hangouts Chat being discontinued surfaced. As it happens, Google isn’t killing Hangouts. Head of Google Hangouts, Scott Johnson, confirmed in a tweet:

“No decisions made about when Hangouts will be shut down. Hangouts users will be upgraded to Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet.”

Gartner initially included Google Hangouts in their Chat Wars article in 2017. Google certainly hasn’t won the messaging war but they are hanging on in there.

Interestingly, Tim Gelardi suggested “Google is making a serious play for the enterprise now. It will be interesting to see how G-Suite customers take to the Hangouts Chat.”

Google Hangouts

Battlers from left field

Workplace by Facebook only received 1% of the Spiceworks survey. Since the study, Nestle has committed to a 210,000 user deployment. Workplace VP, Julien Codorniou told me openly that the Workplace strategy is to attack the forward-thinking Fortune 500 customers. Whilst there appears a lot of room to make up, Tim Gelardi shares the same opinion.

“I think will see Facebook gaining a lot of user base market share, but if the big Chinese providers (DingTalk, WeChat etc) can monetize their existing free users, they could be dark horses.”

There is also the potential for Unified Comms vendors to make a real play in the messaging wars this year. Vendors like RingCentral and Unify now include messaging and collaboration offerings in their solutions. Glip and Circuit act as potential threats to the larger players in the messaging wars — particularly if the focus (mainly in Europe) is still on telephony. Could this be a way into the war or will the big three trump these solutions on sheer brand power?

Could the major brands flex their brand power?

Who will win the enterprise messaging wars?

I reached out to industry experts to get their opinions on who would win the messaging wars.

Blair Pleasant, Co-Founder of UCStrategies.com, summarizes nicely “There doesn’t have to be one winner — lots of room in the messaging space for multiple vendors — and more choices for customers.”

CTO and Head of AI at Five9, Jonathan Rosenberg, who recently gave his thoughts in our “Mio chats” interview series, suggests that “2019 will be a transition year with early deployments at scale. Microsoft Teams will do well as Office 365 scales and Cisco Webex Teams will grow as well. Slack still wins downmarket and line of business.”

Jonathan Rosenberg

Interoperability in the messaging wars

As the market continues to grow considerations must be made for instances of multiple messaging platforms. Graham Walsh, Director of Solutions Architecture at Pexip, recognized this in his comment:

“I think one fundamental piece of the jigsaw is missing — interoperability. I get asked it all the time. Can Slack talk to Hangouts etc. With so many acquisitions, not everyone wants to be on one platform. Let users have the choice.”

Kevin Kieller, Co-Founder of enableUC, said that multi-vendor solutions sound okay in theory but couldn’t see it happening. “Google, Slack and Microsoft want you in their ecosystem.”

The reverse is the belief of Umar Sear, Director of Business Collaboration, Mobility & IoT Solutions at Tata Communications. “I believe it’s going to get a lot more diverse. We need to find a way to interoperate between the platforms.”

Andy Dignan, SVP of Professional Services at Five9 approached the messaging wars from a customer angle. “2019 will be the year that customers who have Slack, Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex Teams will get closer to choosing one solution, maybe two. The users will decide.”

Alaa Saayed, ICT Industry Director at Frost & Sullivan, agreed that Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex Teams will continue to grow but that Slack will win the 2019 messaging wars. “As of May 2018, Slack had 8m active daily users — 3m were paid.”

The enterprise messaging wars continue

It’s fair to say that the industry remains fragmented but full of great messaging platforms, and there is no clear winner of the enterprise messaging wars. In Tom Hadfield’s initial article, he suggested we were only on episode 5 of Game Of Messaging Thrones. Almost a year later, I’d suggest we’ve made it to around episode 8. The enterprise messaging wars are not over. They’re still heating up.