Slack now has its own office software Docs app, for literally no reason
Organization comes to Slack
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Not content to merely be an app that excels at messaging, Slack has revealed it is coming forGoogle’s office tools crown with its new Canvas feature,first announced in September 2022.
The idea is that, because any messaging app in the workplace is a fast-moving, mostly irrelevant cacophony, canvases (essentially individual documents, thinkGoogle Docs) will allow for storing and quickly referring to information.
PerThe Verge, the Canvas rollout has now begun, although our quick internal team survey found not all Slack users have received it just yet, so some users may just have to wait that little bit longer.
Productivity tools, and “the everything app”
Not that it really matters: if your workplace uses Slack, it’s probably because it’s notable as a very good messaging app that, for a time, offered featuresGoogle Chatjust didn’t, like threaded conversations, @ mentions, or (admittedly a less earth-shattering development) emoji reactions.
It’s more of an equal playing field now, but if your workplace started using Slack because it excels in messaging more than any other area, it probably also uses anotherproductivity toolbetter designed for producing, organizing and sharing documents, likeGoogle WorkspaceorMicrosoft 365.
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What’s more bizarre is that Slack does allow for integration with the third party applications, such as Google Drive, that you already use at work. Did we need this? Honestly? Are software companies so devoid of ideas that they just need to do everything now?
Even Ali Rayl, Slack’s Product SVP, says “Google Docs 100 percent still has a place in our universe.” It’s convenient, maybe, to have essentially an identical, if less good version of it directly in Slack, but good luck getting your colleagues to adopt one or the other. Prepare for chaos. Civil war.
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Luke Hughes holds the role of Staff Writer at TechRadar Pro, producing news, features and deals content across topics ranging from computing to cloud services, cybersecurity, data privacy and business software.
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