For those of you who have never used Slack and are not aware of its network effect, the simplest way to describe it is: “iMessage on steroids for businesses.” Android phone-toting readers in the US will inherently hate this analogy but grasp perfectly well what I am saying.

Stewart Butterfield publicly addressed Microsoft Teams on stage at Wall Street Journal’s Tech Live conference in Laguna Beach and exposed some alarming information about some of Microsoft’s “unsportsmanlike” tactics used against Slack.

“Whatever work you do, you can do it in Slack” is the first thing to greet you when you go to Slack’s website. It's a bold, exciting, intriguing, and perhaps ambiguous claim. According to its S-1 filing, the company is on a mission “to make people’s working lives simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.” Let’s discuss this without the distraction of financial numbers and operating metrics. So, what is Slack, and how is it disrupting the way people work?