What are shared channels and why do they matter matter?

Shared channels are nothing special, and that’s the beauty of it. Through shared channels, Slack users from different organizations can use Slack to collaborate together as easily as they do internally. Shared channels were officially launched on September 16, 2019, and became available for all paid plans.

Before shared channels, collaborators from outside the organization would have to log in to the workspace of each different organization they collaborated with. After shared channels were introduced, all collaborations consolidated into one workspace. This might seem trivial, but it increases productivity, lowers complexity, and is a key differentiator from Microsoft Teams.

The implied benefits of shared channels are their network effect. Besides making it easier for teams from different organizations to collaborate with each other, organizations have started to invite their suppliers, customers, contractors, and others to communicate on Slack instead of via traditional methods like email. If these new users enjoy using Slack, they will invite their own contacts, and so forth.

Microsoft is not sitting idle and will likely introduce similar features soon. However, as of September 2019, Teams has not even launched private channels, a much requested feature Slack introduced in 2015. Regardless, it is unclear whether Slack’s superior product will give it the opening it needs to penetrate the enterprise market where Microsoft is king.