Facebook has opened up its Workplace platform app to enable businesses to have their own social network while allowing Facebook to compete in the same collaborative and communications business tool market as Microsoft’s Yammer, Slack and Google’s Cloud.
New Collaborative Business Tools
The Workplace platform supports features such as live video and instant messaging and could be used by businesses internally to replace tools such as email. The Facebook Workplace platform therefore provides Facebook with a means to compete with other popular business-focused collaborative/communications business tools and services.
Previously known in its testing phase under the working title of ‘Facebook at Work’ the Workplace platform’s all-in-one integrated structure and the incorporation of many of Facebook’s best elements could make it a very serious competitor indeed for market share currently enjoyed by platforms such as Yammer and Slack.
About the Competitors
Workplace will therefore be in competition with:
- Yammer – Yammer (developed by a Paypal executive and purchased by Microsoft in 2012) is a private business social networking platform that allows people to work collaboratively in order to meet the needs of the business. It has been referred to as ‘Facebook for business’, its clientele includes more than 80% of Fortune 500 Companies, and as of February this year it was rolled out to all eligible Office 365 business customers.
- Slack – Slack (an acronym for Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge) is a cloud-based, collaborative instant messaging tool for businesses that was launched in 2013. This ‘fremium’ platform allows several thousand users per channel and has mobile apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.
- Google Cloud – The Google Cloud platform is a service that offers companies worldwide a wide range of services including serving website content, storing data, and distributing large data objects to users via direct download.
For a Subscription
Facebook’s Workplace is the first of its services to charge a subscription fee instead of using advertising revenue to fund it. Workplace already has some major high profile customers including Danone and Starbucks.
Compatible with Millennials
As company workforces have become more made up of those from the millennial generation who are used to social networking, it is thought that the Facebook Workplace app is something that they can easily take to.
What Does This Mean For Your Business?
Facebook’s Workplace app provides businesses with a way to bring a fully integrated social network. This could allow much better and faster communication and collaboration which could improve the competitiveness of your business in an environment where competitors may already be employing similar technologies and services.
As well as being tested for years and already having over 1,000 business customers, Workplace’s credibility is of course helped by the fact that it comes from what most people would consider the definitive social networking expert company.