Sources: Microsoft working on a Slack competitor called Skype Teams; service to include threaded messages, channels, DMs, video calls, meeting scheduling, more
It was recently reported that Microsoft wanted to buy Slack for $8 billion. Slack, for those unfamiliar …
Context & Ripple Effects
Earlier this year Microsoft weighed buying the thing outright: EVP Qi Lu pushed for an acquisition of Slack worth up to $8 billion, but Bill Gates and Satya Nadella rejected the plan in favor of adding features to Skype. In January, Skype had even shipped a Slack integration preview letting teams start calls from inside Slack.
Today's report shows which way that internal bet landed: rather than pay for Slack, Microsoft is building its own answer — Skype Teams, with threaded messages, channels, DMs, video calls and meeting scheduling. If it ships bundled with Microsoft's enterprise footprint, Slack's standalone position changes from complementary tool to contested territory.
First-order effects
- Microsoft commits its own engineering to workplace chat instead of an $8 billion check, directly entering Slack's core market with threaded messages, channels, DMs and video calls under the Skype banner.
- Slack's January integration with Skype — built so teams could start calls from Slack — now reads as cooperation with a company already building a competing product.
Second-order effects
- With the Gates-Nadella rejection on record, Slack's path to a mega-deal runs through other suitors rather than Redmond — a dynamic Amazon's reported interest at a $9B+ valuation would soon test.
- If Teams ships tied to Office 365 business subscriptions, Slack must compete on product merit against a rival whose distribution rides on software enterprises already buy, pressuring Slack's pricing and bundling strategy.
Third-order effects
- If the bundle-and-build pattern holds, workplace chat consolidates around office-suite vendors, leaving independent messaging products to fight for acquisitions or fade into features of larger platforms.
- Skype's identity shifts from consumer-calling brand to the foundation layer of Microsoft's enterprise collaboration stack — a direction that points toward Teams eventually displacing Skype for Business itself.
The trend: Workplace communication is consolidating around office-suite bundles, where distribution through existing enterprise subscriptions increasingly beats standalone chat products.