Slack’s Recent Antitrust Complaint Against Microsoft: Important Takeaways For Startups
The value of competition and the limitations of a single product company.
We cannot limit ourselves to continuing on the path we have already opened — Amancio Ortega
November 2, 2016, Slack put out an audacious message to Microsoft just before the latter launched Teams, a competitive application that directly competed with Slack.
The message was a full-page letter in the New York Times stating how Slack was genuinely happy to have the competition. The letter went on to offer a lesson to Microsoft on how to get the job done and why it would be difficult to replicate the success Slack has had.
At the time, most people were optimistic about Slack’s future prospects and what they stood to accomplish from the single product they provided to people and organizations across the world. In hindsight, I think we can all agree that everybody overestimated the growth of Slack and underestimated the influence of Microsoft.
