However, one of the most notable additions is the ability to react to messages with emojis. This is a feature has been present in Slack for a long time, so it’s good to see it in Microsoft’s workplace chat. Though some will see it as a little too informal, a simple thumbs-up, for example, can go a long way. Teams’ current emojis include a happy face, an angry face, a heart, and thumbs up. It’s far from the wide and even custom options available in Slack, with the upside of keeping things a little less confusing. In terms of search, users will notice the ability to see all result types in a single view. Meanwhile, announcement posts are now viewable in channels, and @mention suggests are improved. Changes are also coming to private teams, with owners able to decide whether or not they show up in search results. Finally, there have been the usual bug fixes and performance improvements, which Microsoft did not list individually.
Slack Gets More Performant
Meanwhile, the competition between Slack and Teams is heating up. Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield recently said that his company didn’t see the Microsoft as a threat and likened its business model to Google+. Additionally, a recent update to Slack gave it a major overhaul in the speed department. The app has been slow to start for a while, especially on slow connections with multiple channels. It now loads up to 33% faster. However, one aspect Slack has struggled with recently is downtime. Over the past months, the service has gone down several times, affecting newsrooms and companies across the world. Currently, the better pick of the services depends greatly on your ecosystem. Naturally, Microsoft’s has better integration with Office 365 and is bundled with the plan, though Slack recently made doc attachment improvements. You can grab the latest version of Microsoft Teams for Android here.
