Slack brings Microsoft Teams calling integration with the latest update

Slack has begun integrating other popular video conferencing apps into its chat app. The company has integrated Microsoft Teams' calling feature along with a range of other popular workplace apps like Zoom Phone, Cisco Jabber, and RingCentral.

With the new integration, Slack users can now make Zoom or Microsoft Teams calls. The latest update is in addition to the Slack's built-in calling option. Earlier, the app allowed users to join Cisco, WebEx, and BlueJeans calls.

Slack last week had announced it was planning to bring Teams integration to its platform. "We're working on Teams integrations for calling feature," said Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield.

Slack's latest update comes shortly after the company introduced a major redesign. The first big design change since 2013, Slack has a new navigation bar on top, new compose button, and enhanced sidebar which features additional functions such as mentions, reactions to messages, files, people and apps.

It's worth noting that Slack and Microsoft Teams are rivals and offer very similar sets of features. Both platforms and other similar apps have seen a big surge in usage as people are working remotely in the wake of Covid-19 pandemic. Microsoft reported 44 million daily active users on its Teams platform.

Apart from Hangouts (Google), Microsoft Teams, and Slack, newer apps like Zoom have also grown in popularity. The Zoom app in particular has come under wide scrutiny after it was revealed that the video calls on the platform aren't end-to-end encrypted. The US' FBI has also cautioned users about the vulnerabilities of the app. The FBI reportedly, "received multiple reports of conferences being disrupted by pornographic and/or hate images and threatening language."