Amazon may take on Microsoft & Google in the #Productivity #Collaboration space (Slack should watch too) #digitaltransformation

Published by David Terrar, February 28th, 2017

A number of people and publications have picked up on Kevin McLaughlin's piece from last Friday on The Information reporting that Amazon Web Services are shaping to take on Microsoft and Google with a collaboration and productivity suite. Kevin suggests:

"AWS is working on upgrades to its WorkMail email-calendar app and its WorkDocs file storage-collaboration app to make them more attractive to corporate customers, according to two people who do business with the company. AWS has also told some large corporate customers it’s considering bundling these apps with its recently launched Chime video conferencing apps into a new productivity app suite that will compete with Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365, according to a person who’s been briefed on the cloud unit’s plans."

As well as the WorkMail app and WorkDocs file storage they also have the AWS Amazon Simple Email Service (SES). Put these alongside Chime, which is a smart looking Skype, Google Hangouts or GoToMeeting alternative for voice, video and chat meetings and webinars, and then it begins to make sense. Those orange AWS building blocks start making a coherent whole. On top of that I’m sure they’ll be looking at what Microsoft Teams and Facebook at Work are doing, or even considering splashing out to buy Slack. From their cloud infrastructure and developer tools foundation, it is a logical next step to move up the business stack. I’ll be watching and writing more on this over at Agile Elephant.