Slack vs. Microsoft — Who’s the Real Anti-Competitor Here?
Recently Slack Technologies decided to take legal action against Microsoft. Slack has filed an anti-competitive practice lawsuit before the European Commission alleging that Microsoft’s inclusion of its video chat and collaboration offering known as “Teams” as part of Microsoft Office 365 poses a barrier to Slack’s chances at corporate market share.
Slack aims to be a collaboration melting pot that provides text chat, audio/video calling (via Amazon Chime), and a landing point for external integrations. Slack offers a wide array of third-party integrations (because of an amazing API) allowing it to be a hub for all sorts of normally un-unified applications.
On the other side if the ring is Microsoft’s Office; a long-standing productivity suite that has been a business staple for over 30 years. Office has met the needs of many business and consumer users since. It has remained the leader in productivity software because it remains responsive to the market and the needs of its users. What Teams lacks in razzle-dazzle it makes up for in productivity. It does what it needs to do and that is providing: real-time text-based chat, video calling with a hoard of persons simultaneously and easily share documents with coworkers. Turns out that’s all we really needed; we didn’t need endless integrations after all.
Historically there are two dominating philosophies in the tech world, the “open it up and hack it to your heart’s content” and “just turn it on and make it work”. Slack is in the earlier while Microsoft is firmly in the later. Users pay for Microsoft Office because it works right out of the box, no configuration needed.
The issue I take with the Slack’s complaint is they are essentially saying that a competitor isn’t allowed to add a feature to their product because it impacts their ability to gain market share. They claim that Microsoft is blocking them from corporate clients because Teams is free and included with Office 365. Slack argues that Microsoft should “remove Teams from Office, make it a stand-alone product and charge a fair price”[1], while Slack continues to offer their product for free.
This argument is feebly based on the 1998 U.S. vs. Microsoft antitrust case[2]. According to Slack’s General Counsel, David Schellhase, “Microsoft is reverting to past behavior. They created a weak, copycat product and tied it to their dominant Office product, force installing it and blocking its removal, a carbon copy of their illegal behavior during the ‘browser wars.’ Slack is asking the European Commission to take swift action to ensure Microsoft cannot continue to illegally leverage its power from one market to another by bundling or tying products”.
Unraveling this complaint — first is that Microsoft won anti-trust case (on appeal)[3]. Second, if Teams is bundled with Office what of it? Google bundles Hangouts (their video chat offering) with GSuite. Lastly, Slack is built on open-source software that is freely available on the internet. Slack’s desktop application is built on Electron which is owned and maintained by Microsoft. Slack is arguing that freely available software negatively impacts them. Microsoft does not hamper Slack in any manor other than bundling a tool with its already established productivity suite. Moreover, Slack recently claimed that Teams did not pose a real threat to their adoption[4]. They are seeking a legally handicap a competitor. Apparently, the announcement of Microsoft Teams’ 75 million daily active users now feels like a threat — which is why this lawsuit feels frivolous and without merit.
Users want effective real-time collaboration. Slack provides a great tool as does Teams. Slack connects discrete services whereas Microsoft Teams connects the Microsoft Office eco-system. Should Microsoft be barred from providing tools that augment their flag-ship product? Should any company be barred from offering a product that accentuates or adds value to their existing product, even at the cost of impacting a competitor? Microsoft does not prevent Slack from operating alongside or with Office.
Slack convinced our corporate overlords that we can all benefit from a real time communication platform regardless if on-site or remote. Slack will remain (for the time being) a tool of choice at many startups and non-Microsoft operations where there’s more diversity in the tech stack and money to spend. As for larger companies or businesses that wish to streamline and simplify operations, business decisions will usually fall to using tools already in play that focus on solving the actual problem, collaboration.
I see this complaint at best, a publicity stunt or at worst malicious attack on the ability to deliver new and innovative features and products to market. Slack is asking that Microsoft charge an additional fee for Teams rather than having the option of proving it for free — all the while Slack is offered for free. That’s the punchline.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/technology/slack-microsoft-antitrust.html
[2] United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001)
[3] United States v. Microsoft Corp., 98-CV-1232 (D.D.C. Nov. 12, 2002).
