Slack messaging software hits record number of active users as employees across the world work from home due to the coronavirus pandemic
- Slack messaging software has hit a record number of active users
- Its instant messaging software now has 12.5 million active users
- That’s an increase of 2.5 million active users in the last 10 days
- The surge is likely being driven by waves of people working from home
- Coronavirus symptoms: what are they and should you see a doctor?
Software facilitating remote work has seen unprecedented demand as more and more people are isolated due to an ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
According to founder of Slack Technologies, a popular work-from-home software that lets people communicate with one another using instant messaging, millions of active users have flooded the service in a little more than a week, breaking a company record.
On Twitter, Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield said that simultaneously connected users increased from 10.5 million on March 16 to 12.5 million on March 25.
Slack says that it has hit an unprecedented number of daily active users as people isolate in their homes and are forced to work from home
Butterfield also said that From February 1 to March 25 Slack added 9,000 new paid customers, and over the same period average use of Slack increased approximately 20 percent.
Likewise, Slack’s competitor, Microsoft Teams, has seen a surge in daily active users, reaching 12 million last week – an increase of 1 million users.
Though Microsoft Teams still has a substantial lead over the company with 44 million active users, Slack has carved out its own niche in the remote working market.
As noted by The Verge, Slack was selected by the tech giant, IBM, to facilitate the communications of its more than 330,000 workers.
What effect the influx of users will have on those services and whether they will be able to handle the increased usership remains to be seen.
Online gamers are among the people putting strain on internet and causing disruptions in services
An influx of remote workers has caused issues for many tech companies across the world as they deal with unprecedented demand.
Among them are giants like Netflix who saw outages across the globe this week, making users in Europe and the US unable to stream content.
Additionally, gaming services like Xbox Live and Nintendo online have also seen major outages as people isolate in their homes.
