Microsoft Bans Employees From Using Slack

Microsoft has reportedly banned its employees from using Slack, a professional collaboration software tool that competes with the likes of Flock, Facebook Workplace, and Microsoft Teams. The company has put Amazon’s Web Services (AWS) and Google Docs on its list of “prohibited and discouraged technology.”

Microsoft has also banned Grammarly grammar checking tool and Kaspersky security software for its employees, according to a Geekwire report. Interestingly enough, the ‘discouraged’ list includes the cloud version of GitHub, a popular software developer platform which Microsoft acquired last year.

The report said that the decision to ban Slack in particular was not because of the direct competition with Microsoft Teams but a measure to prevent risks to IT and intellectual property. Microsoft, however, has gone soft on Enterprise Grid version of Slack, saying other versions of the app “do not provide required controls” for security.