HipChat integrates with a proactive version of Amazon's Alexa

As its competition from the likes of Microsoft and Slack heats up, Atlassian's workplace chat platform HipChat is rolling out innovations that, the company argues, help set it apart by offering "full-stack collaboration." The company on Wednesday announced a new integration with Amazon Echo -- the first of any integration that allows Alexa to initiate conversations. Built by the software developer SoftServe using the HipChat API, the integration allows a user to connect Alexa to their HipCat room and teach Alexa to perform simple tasks. It also allows Alexa to proactively give notifications from HipChat rooms. For instance, a HipChat user could use Alexa to get a notification if their website goes down and then instruct Alexa to deploy a previous version.