Rest of the Day: Microsoft Launches New Chat and Collaboration Platform
Microsoft today announced a new chat platform called Teams. It will integrate with Office 365 with a focus on collaboration. In other words, it is a competitor to Microsoft Slack. About this and much more in today’s news.
- Microsoft Teams is a “chat-based workspace” where you can have group chats, work on documents, and whatever else you expect. The goal is primarily professional collaboration, but just like Slack, casual users can also take advantage of the platform. The preview is available to Office 365 subscribers today. Check out the bright promo below. [Microsoft]
- Slack posted a full-page ad in the New York Times today with an essay “congratulating” Microsoft . The chat app protests too much. [Slack]
- Facebook has its own new platform for gaming. Facebook Gameroom is a desktop gaming platform akin to Steam where you can access a variety of fairly basic games. (Currently, all the games they host are under 200MB in size, so this is not an option for Skyrim or anything.) Just a few years ago, Facebook was a gaming giant in its own right: casual gamers were obsessed with Farmville and the like; Gameroom is an attempt to please this casual player. You can try it on Windows today . [TechCrunch]
- Amazon has a new app for kids called Rapids that tells stories as if they were texting between characters. New idea! It is designed for children ages 7 to 12 and costs $ 2.99 a month as new stories are constantly being added. [CNET]
- Yesterday there were unconfirmed reports about whether that Nintendo Wii U cease production this week. Nintendo has denied these rumors. Of course, the exact time doesn’t really matter as the end of the adorable odd duck console is near. [Kotaku]