Microsoft Teams is getting some serious traction in the workplace chat space, with a new report from Spiceworks (via TNW) showing that it could be second only to Skype for Business by 2020. The survey, conducted across 900 IT companies across the U.S. and Europe shows that Microsoft's share of the market has grown significantly in the last couple of years, while major competitors haven't seen similar results.
"As for adoption of business chat apps going forward, Microsoft Teams will experience the most growth over the next two years. By the end of 2020, 41 percent of organizations expect to use Microsoft Teams (up from 21 percent in 2016), and 18 percent expect to use Slack (up slightly from 15 percent in 2018). In other words, if these adoption plans hold true, we can expect Microsoft Teams adoption rates to be twice as high as Slack's two years from now. "
The report states that Microsoft Teams grew from 3 percent to 21 percent between 2016 and 2018, in part thanks to its wider availability after an initial spell exclusive to business Office 365 accounts. Spiceworks predicts that Teams growth will continue into 2020, while competitors like Slack and Google Hangouts see much smaller shares of the market.
Additionally, of the companies polled, Microsoft Teams was declared as most secure. Skype for Business was (perhaps shockingly) the winner when it comes to reliability, and Slack was declared the most innovative. Teams did fall short a little in the user-friendly stakes, coming behind even Google Hangouts there.
The report has a lot of interesting data to digest, but the core is that Teams has grown at a phenomenal rate already and it looks set to continue.
