Slack has recently announced its plans for voice and video chat, directly stepping into territory historically dominated by Microsoft Skype and other solutions similar to it. It seems that this is not the only conflict of interest between the global IT giant and one of the most successful Silicon Valley start-ups so far.
According to the TechCrunch IT news portal, Microsoft was considering Slack as a potential acquisition in a deal estimated to be worth $8 billion. These plans never came to fruition, as the idea did not have enough support from within Microsoft. In particular, from Bill Gates and Satya Nadella, the chief executive officer of Microsoft, neither of whom found the idea compelling enough. Gates instead insisted that Skype and its new functions need to be developed more, and that the focus should be on increasing the competitiveness of Skype for Business, the main advocate of Microsoft's interests against the army of corporate communicators, headed by Slack.