Why Workplace Instant Messaging Is Hot Again

Chat is almost as old as the internet itself. But this year, investors and big tech companies alike treated workplace messaging as the next big thing. Slack announced a $250 million investment in September from Japanese tech company SoftBank, bringing its total funding to $790 million and boosting its valuation from $3.8 billion to $5.1. In June, rumors surfaced that Amazon wanted to buy the company for as much $9 billion. Meanwhile, Microsoft launched a new chat app called Teams that will eventually replace Skype for Business. Atlassian, the company behind the venerable workplace messaging app HipChat, launched a new service called Stride.