It looks like Microsoft Teams is already off to a solid start as it seeks to take on Slack for dominance in the sphere of team collaboration apps. In a new blog post, the Office team shared that Teams is already being actively used by 30,000 organizations. That's across some 145 markets worldwide, covering 19 total languages.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella briefly mentioned in Microsoft's recent Q2 earnings call that Teams had picked up momentum, but these are the first firm numbers we've seen. In the blog post, Microsoft's Kirk Koenigsbauer says this early engagement has already helped Microsoft shape Teams ahead of its targeted general availability launch.
We're especially inspired by this early usage. Not only does it show that the product fills a real market need, but it gives us a ton of information to help shape the product leading up to General Availability, which is still on track for this current quarter, Q1 2017. Our customers have been a great guide as we've delivered numerous features into the product even since the preview launched—including built-in audio calling on mobile and named group chats, an easy way to keep track of the context of a conversation.
This comes roughly 3 months after Teams was launched in preview in early November. It remains to be seen whether Teams will indeed overtake Slack as a recent survey suggested it might, but competition can only ever be a good thing for users.
