Skip to main content

Slack will boost its spending on AWS to $425 million and Amazon employees will be able to start using Slack as the two companies deepen their partnership (AMZN, WORK)

* AWS is partnering to use Amazon infrastructure for Slack tools. * As part of the deal, Slack is increasing its commitment to AWS to $425 million from $250 million. * Amazon will also start rolling out Slack to its employees, and Slack for the first time publicly proclaimed AWS as its "preferred cloud provider." * Do you work at Microsoft? Contact this reporter via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1-425-344-8242) or email (astewart@businessinsider.com). * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Amazon Web Services and Slack announced on Thursday a partnership to use Amazon infrastructure for Slack tools including audio, video, and screensharing. As part of the deal, Amazon will start rolling out Slack to its employees, and Slack for the first time publicly proclaimed AWS as its "preferred cloud provider." Securities filings reveal Slack upped its commitment to AWS to $425 million from $250 million. The company's annual committment to AWS increased to $75 million from $50 million and will increase by $5 million every year until 2025. "We're both the innovators and leaders of our respective areas coming together," Slack's business development chief Brad Armstrong told Business Insider, adding that the partnership "illustrates the fallacy of the argument that only an integrated solution can come from a monolithic vendor that's providing all things. We are the best at what we do." AWS and Slack said the partnership is not targeted at competing with any company in particular, but Armstrong's comments appear to refer to what's often said to be an advantage of Microsoft's chat and collaboration app Teams — which integrates tightly with Office 365, Microsoft's suite of ubiquitous business apps. Microsoft recently said Teams has reached 75 million daily active users, up from 44 million in mid-March. The partnership also comes after Zoom teamed up with Oracle to support a surge in users during the pandemic, although AWS CEO Andy Jassy during a recent virtual speech made sure to clarify "the vast majority of Zoom's cloud infrastructure runs on AWS and it will for foreseeable future." Slack and AWS have worked together for years, but Armstrong said this is the first time Slack has made a public statement to "reveal we are designating AWS as our cloud provider." Slack has relied on its own technology to power voice and video calls from within its app, but by its own admission falls short of the standards in teleconferencing set by apps like Microsoft Teams or Zoom. Amazon has its own, lesser-known online meeting, videoconferencing, and chat app called Chime. As part of the deal, Slack will use the software development kit from Chime to power its audio, video, and screensharing capabilities in Slack calls.  Analysts have also suggested that Amazon could turn to acquisitions to bolster its efforts in the collaboration space — and have named Slack as one of its most likely targets, should it go that route. While Chime doesn't appear to be as widely used as Slack or Teams, the partnership shows interest in Chime as a developer service. Market share information isn't available for Chime, but as one analyst recently told Business Insider: "I cannot recall attending a Chime meeting that wasn't related to or hosted by Amazon." Eron Kelly, general manager of AWS compute infrastructure and applications, told Business Insider that Chime will still be available to end users, but that Amazon has in the past six months seen a lot of interest in Chime's software development kit. "Customers are really interested in taking advantage of the scale, reach, reliability that the AWS platform can provide, not only for compute, storage, and database services, but also for video and voice services," Kelly said. "We are seeing people want to have collaborative experiences like voice and video in the context of the work they are doing." Amazon will start rolling out Slack to its employees. Kelly said, "We are now making it available as part of this partnership and we will be able to roll it out across the company but it's early stages." Are you a Microsoft employee? Contact this reporter via email at astewart@businessinsider.com, message her on Twitter @ashannstew, or send her a secure message through Signal at 425-344-8242. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Why electric planes haven't taken off yet
https://bit.ly/3eQj66z

Popular posts from this blog

The 11 most important details we already know about the PlayStation 5, Sony's next-generation video game console set to arrive this year

* The PlayStation 5, Sony's next-generation game console that's deep in production, is scheduled to launch during the 2020 holiday season. * As you might expect, the PlayStation 5 is promised to be more powerful than the existing PlayStation 4 — and we've slowly been learning more about the next-gen console's new features since it was first revealed. * So far, Sony has offered a first glimpse at the new console via its new DualSense gamepad, and a tech demo highlighted the technical prowess of the new machine. * Here's everything we know so far about Sony's next-generation PlayStation console. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. The PlayStation 5 is almost here. Sony's next-generation PlayStation game console is scheduled to arrive this holiday season, but we already know plenty of details about it right now: how powerful it is, its main features, and we've even gotten a good look at its new gamepad.  Here everything we kno...
Read more

Tokyo installed see-through public toilets in a park to let people inspect their cleanliness before using them, at which point the glass turns opaque

* Two see-through bathrooms have been installed in public parks in Tokyo. * They are made from "smart glass" designed so people can see how clean they are inside before using them. The glass turns opaque when the bathroom is locked and in use. * The stalls are part of a project that is redoing 17 of the city's public bathrooms with different designers to make them more accessible and appealing. * The goal is to fight assumptions that public toilets are "are dark, dirty, smelly, and scary," said the nonprofit foundation behind the project. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Tokyo has installed two see-through bathroom facilities in public parks, allowing people to see how clean they are before deciding to use them, at which point they turn opaque. The bathrooms are made of colored "smart glass," which turns opaque when the stalls are locked, said Shigeru Ban, the architect behind the designs. You can see how it works her...
Read more

Bill Gates says the world would need as many as 14 billion doses of a coronavirus vaccine to stop the virus

* The world could need as many as 14 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines, Bill Gates said on Thursday in a blog post about the race to develop a way to make people immune to the disease. * "We need to make billions of doses, we need to get them out to every part of the world, and we need all of this to happen as quickly as possible," Gates said. * Gates said he had his eyes on eight to 10 promising candidates, adding that healthcare workers and people in low-income countries should be first in line once we find one that works. * While potential vaccines are progressing with historic speed, they're still months, or even years away, and the biggest challenge lies ahead in proving whether they are safe and effective in humans. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Bill Gates believes we may eventually need to produce as many as 14 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines globally and that we're anywhere from nine months to two years away from making tha...
Read more