Collaboration software start-up, Slack, has launched Enterprise Grid, a platform tailored for large, complex enterprises with up to 500,000 users.
The product powers the design, usage and administration of multiple, interconnected Slack workspaces.
According to Slack, the platform is a fresh approach to accelerating large-scale enterprise productivity by transforming workflows and helping people communicate within and across business lines.
Adding to its alliances with Salesforce, IBM and Google, Slack is partnering with SAP to build a portfolio of bots designed to empower its enterprise customers as well as its developer community.
Enterprise customers will have the ability to interact with SAP’s Concur platform through a bot to bring business travel and expense management into a conversational interface such as allowing them to submit expenses and request information about itineraries.
The partnership with SAP also offers a new bot for HR activities through SuccessFactors.
The chat interface will enable customers to create and review activities and achievements, and managers can provide feedback on action, without having to break from the work they’re already doing in Slack.
In November last year, Microsoft unveiled its work-chat application, Microsoft Teams, designed to enhance the collaboration capabilities in Office 365, tapping into more than 85 million monthly active commercial users.
An open letter from Slack dominating The New York Times advertorial pages subsequently emerged as a result, giving the impression that the company was feeling the pressure from its new market competition.
“Microsoft has thrown down the gauntlet to Slack and other chat-based workspace providers with the announcement of a new Office 365 product family member,” Ovum research analyst, Richard Edwards, said.
However, he maintained that real business transformation requires these mediums to be integrated with the tasks and activities that individual employees undertake every day and the applications they use to get work done.
