Slack Technologies Inc. today released an app that allows customers to integrate its team chat service with Microsoft Corp.’s competing Microsoft Teams.

Both platforms have been onboarding large numbers of new users in recent weeks as a result of the worldwide shift to remote work. Slack recently disclosed an increase of more than 9,000 customers since the start of the quarter. Microsoft, not to be outdone, said on Saturday that Teams is now logging more than 900 million minutes of user activity per day.

Slack’s new Microsoft Teams Calls app should be a boon for the growing number of companies using both services. It serves a narrow, straightforward purpose: enabling users to make Microsoft Teams calls from inside the Slack interface.

The app can be used to launch a new call, as well as join an existing meeting via a card (pictured) that appears in the Slack message stream. The card displays when the call started and who’s participating. There are also connectors for Outlook and Google Calendar that show calendar reminders for Microsoft Teams meetings in Slack.

Slack is rolling out the Microsoft Teams Calls app alongside integrations with several other external communications services. The Verge reported that users of the team chat service will gain the ability to make calls via Zoom, Cisco Systems Inc.’s Jabber, RingCentral and Dialpad.

Slack’s decision to integrate with one of its main rivals in the team chat market comes as less of a surprise than it could’ve been because Chief Executive Officer Stewart Butterfield briefed a Wall Street analyst about the move last week. The recent surge in demand for communications tools may have led Slack to release the app sooner than planned, or it may have been the reason it developed the app in the first place.

The coronavirus pandemic is increasingly driving tech firms to adjust not just business planning but also their product roadmaps. ClassPass Inc., a heavily funded startup that helps users find fitness classes, has reportedly frozen hiring and is now scrambling to build out a workout streaming service. Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc., meanwhile, diverted development resources to creating COVID-19 screening tools.

Given the sharp rise in hacking campaigns targeting online meeting participants, it’s possible communications providers such as Slack will realign their feature roadmaps to place a bigger emphasis on security. Engineering teams are no doubt also spending considerable energy on trying to make their infrastructure more resilient in the face of surging user traffic. 

Photo: Slack