Microsoft is reportedly building the collaboration tool called Skype Teams, company's first product to compete against popular group messaging apps such as Slack.

Skype Teams App

According to PCWorld, despite having a varied portfolio of collaboration services, the high-tech giant Microsoft is still struggling to become a strong competitor to popular enterprise group messaging apps like HipChat and Slack. Microsoft already has Yammer, Skype for Business and SharePoint, but none of them is really a direct competitor to the best modern messaging applications that are well designed and offer bot and GIF support.

According to a report published on Tuesday, Sept. 6, by MSPoweruser, this situation is about to change. Microsoft is working on a new service with group chat capabilities called Skype Teams. This new collaboration tool aims to become a more direct competitor to Slack.

Microsoft is reportedly testing the service internally at the company. Skype Teams is supposed to allow users chat both in groups and privately. The new Microsoft collaboration tool will come with a number of features already present in Skype, such as voice and video calling.

According to DigitalTrends, Microsoft considered earlier this year to acquire team messaging app Slack for $8 billion. But the high-tech company finally decided to build its own Skype-based solution for team chats.

With Skype Teams users will be able to chat directly with team members using the service's direct messaging feature in dedicated channels or chat rooms. Skype Teams will also provide threaded conversations, a feature similar to how Facebook users can reply to a specific comment.  Users of Microsoft's collaborative tool will also have the possibility to schedule online meetings.

Another interesting feature of the Skype Teams group messaging app will be called "The Fun Picker." The feature will allowing users to add all kinds of fun stuff into their group chats, besides just the usual static GIFs.