Around these here parts we use Slack and we’re pretty fond of it – beats sending emails and signing in and out of Skype, for reals.

Now Microsoft are wading in and taking them on with the launch of Microsoft Teams, which is pretty much a direct competitor to Slack and the niche they have managed to carve out.

So how do you ready yourselves for a proper market share battle? You take out a full page ad in the New York Times, which hits newsstands hours before Microsoft make their big announcement, and land the first blow.

Here’s what the advert looked like:

And some of what was said with the help of The Verge:

…the company warns Microsoft that it’s not the features that matter, it’s the craftsmanship and human aspects of the software. “We’ve spent tens of thousands of hours talking to customers and adapting Slack to find the grooves that match all those human quirks,” says the Slack team. “The internal transparency and sense of shared purpose that Slack-using teams discover is not an accident. Tiny details make big differences.”

It wasn’t all ‘shots fired’ kind of stuff, though, because the note did end on a positive:

The final point in Slack’s note is an important one, it’s all about love. “You’ll need to take a radically different approach to supporting and partnering with customers to help them adjust to new and better ways of working,” warns the Slack team. “If you want customers to switch to your product, you’re going to have to match our commitment to their success and take the same amount of delight in their happiness.” That’s something Microsoft, as a corporate giant, will have to adjust to, and Slack will always have the edge and focus there.

Nothing like a word of advice to the mega-company you’re about to do battle with. We know Microsoft are going to come out guns blazing, so let’s keep an eye on this one and see where it all goes.

[source:theverge]