Meta (formerly Facebook) has an enterprise communication platform called Workplace, which had over seven million paid subscribers back in May. It is meant to be a rival to Microsoft Teams, which had over 145 million daily active users around the same time. Today, Meta and Microsoft have announced a partnership through which they will be integrate the two communication platforms.
There are essentially two facets to the integration. The first is that Workplace content will be synced to Teams so that you don"t need to jump between two apps to communicate with people using both platforms. Secondly, customers will be able to stream from Microsoft Teams into Workplace groups, which means that they can join a virtual meeting from any app and even watch its recording on Workplace later.
Jeff Teper, CVP Product & Engineering at Microsoft Teams had the following to say about the collaboration:
One thing I learned from the pandemic is that companies don’t just rely on one tool to get their work done, so it is our responsibility as leaders in the space to make sure the tools they use integrate and interoperate with each other. We have a shared vision of offering our customers choice and flexibility, so it made sense for us to come together to help our mutual customers unlock collaboration and break down silos within their organizations.
This announcement is the latest in Microsoft and Meta"s joint effort to develop tools that can allow their respective customers to communicate and collaborate with each other securely. Workplace already integrates with SharePoint, OneDrive, and Office 365 apps, but this new integration will further solidify the working relationship between the two companies and provide flexibility to their joint customers.
The sharing of content between Workplace and Teams is live as of today, but the ability to stream meetings from the latter to Workplace groups will become available in early 2022. You can start trying out the integrations today.