Meta (formerly Facebook) and Microsoft announced a partnership to integrate Workplace and Teams, their respective team collaboration platforms. Beginning immediately, access to Workplace content will be available within Teams. In December, Microsoft Teams will be available on the Meta Portal (Facebook Portal) device, allowing video calling in Teams. In early 2022, Teams video meetings will be livestreamed within Workplace.

Gregg Willsky, Principal Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Customers have come to leverage multiple team collaboration platforms and made it clear they covet competitors who don’t lock them in. This applies to both software (for example, the ability to access Slack functionality while within Salesforce) and hardware (such as the bi-directional interoperability between devices from Webex by Cisco and Google Meet). In working together, Meta and Microsoft are setting a tone for others to follow.”

“This latest announcement extends Meta’s deep relationship with Microsoft. Workplace integrations have previously been established with several Microsoft offers (Office 365, One Drive, SharePoint, and Azure Active Directory).

Willsky adds: “Meta is enhancing its competitive position by partnering with Microsoft, arguably the top vendor in the team collaboration market. Microsoft lends Meta a degree of caché as well as access to 250 million monthly active Teams users.”

Despite reason for optimism a cautious note must be sounded. Willsky comments: “The partnership comes as both companies are beginning to compete in the augmented reality space. Whether that will fray the relationship remains to be seen.”