Remote work during coronavirus outbreak puts millions more on Microsoft Teams, Slack

Teams had 44 million users as of March 18, Microsoft says, more than double the 20 million daily active users that the software maker reported in November

Slack says it added 7,000 new paid customers from February 1 to March 18, roughly 40 per cent more than each of its previous two fiscal quarters

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Team collaboration platforms Microsoft Teams and Slack have seen a jump in users as more people worked from home during the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 9:59am, 20 Mar 2020Updated: 9:59am, 20 Mar 2020

Microsoft’s Teams chat and conferencing app gained more than 12 million daily users in one week, a 37.5 per cent jump as more people worked from home during the coronavirus outbreak, the company said on Thursday.

Teams had 44 million users as of March 18, Microsoft said, more than double the 20 million daily active users that the software maker reported in November. Teams users grew from 32 million to 44 million in the period between March 11 and March 18 alone, as many more US companies asked employees to work from home, Microsoft said.

There were no comparable recent numbers for the major rival to Teams, collaboration app Slack Technologies, which said in October that it had 12 million daily active users.

Slack did not update that figure during its earnings announcement on March 12, but said four of its five largest deals in the most recent quarter were won against Microsoft Teams. On Thursday, Slack said it added 7,000 new paid customers from February 1 to March 18, a roughly 40 per cent increase over each of its previous two fiscal quarters, when it had added about 5,000 new paid customers per quarter.

Microsoft also rolled out several features designed to help with telemedicine and working from home, such as a bookings application for Teams to help hospitals manage virtual appointments.

“As organisations around the world are changing the way they work in response to the (coronavirus) situation, we’re going to learn a tremendous amount,” Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, said in a virtual news conference.

Remote work during coronavirus outbreak puts millions more on Microsoft Teams, Slack

Teams had 44 million users as of March 18, Microsoft says, more than double the 20 million daily active users that the software maker reported in November Slack says it added 7,000 new paid customers from February 1 to March 18, roughly 40 per cent more than each of its previous two fiscal quarters