We live in a society were the biting economy and ever-growing competition is breaking the backbone of many well-established firms. However, some are bold enough to make the demanding yet drastic changes. Microsoft seems to be one of them.
Microsoft prohibited the use of Slack and much other software’s
Slack has been banned by Microsoft
Source: Chanty
If certain reports are trusted then Microsoft has taken drastic steps and banned their employees from using much different software. Microsoft has banned its workers from using Slack. Slack, is a professional collaboration software which is often found competing with Microsoft’s team for likes.
Slack is valued to be worthy of more than 23 billion US dollars. It has a total of 90 million users, however, there are only 100,000 paid subscribers. Earlier this week, Slack announced a huge public trading debut.
#Microsoft has banned its employees from using the free version of #Slack, reportedly due to security concerns.
Photo: IANS pic.twitter.com/1PnKNO7yOJ
— IANS Tweets (@ians_india) June 23, 2019
Facebook Workplace and Flock are two other competitors of Slack. Microsoft has elongated its “prohibited and discouraged technology” list by adding the names of Google Docs as well as Amazon Web Services to it.
This is not all, the company even banned the use of Grammarly, the famous grammar checking tools. As well as the use of Kaspersky security software is also no longer available for its employees. The report which leaked this information also said that banning Slack was not a move to remove competition.
What reasons did Microsoft give for these drastic steps: know here
Grammarly has been put in the Prohibited List of Microsoft
Source: The TechPie
Slack was banned as stated in the report so as to prevent risks to IT as well as the intellectual property of the company. It advised its employees saying
Slack Free, Slack Standard and Slack Plus versions do not provide required controls to properly protect Microsoft Intellectual Property (IP). Existing users of these solutions should migrate chat history and files related to Microsoft business to Microsoft Teams, which offers the same features and integrated Office 365 apps, calling and meeting functionality.”
Microsoft banned Slack.
Is this typical? https://t.co/mSDKDTAeNg— Nathan Baschez (@nbashaw) June 22, 2019
It even said
Learn more about the additional features that Teams can provide your workgroup. Slack Enterprise Grid version complies with Microsoft security requirements; however, we encourage use of Microsoft Teams rather than a competitive software.”
As far as Google Docs and Amazon Web Services are concerned it has discouraged its use. Those employees who wish to use it will have to show a business justification for it.
Grammarly is another software whose use has been affected. It has been straight-away placed in the “Prohibited List”. It is said that Grammarly has been banned as it was capable of accessing IRM protected information and content within emails.
did not expect to see Grammarly on this listhttps://t.co/N3jQtwYAdE
— Jordan Novet (@jordannovet) June 21, 2019
So maybe this move is not so much for cutting down competition but to protect its users. Microsoft has advised the staff to use internally developed software in place of those which are recently banned.
For more information and updates stay tuned to The Geek Herald.
