by Jim Lundy
Slack is part of Salesforce and with that now comes the marketing drumbeat at the annual Salesforce Dreamforce Conference – referred to as #DF21. Dreamforce starts today. Part of the news being announced today is Slack Clips – which allows video and audio to be shared with others.
Photo from https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/
Analysis: Slack Is Late to the Table – Video Was the Story Last Year
While this is great news that Slack has recognized the power of video – that was what was needed during the pandemic. Slack should have made this move a year ago – but we’d note, it took almost a year for the Slack and Salesforce deal to close. It won’t hurt Slack that they are just announcing this feature now.
How Does Slack Clips Work?
A user can record a message using their microphone or their video camera and then share that file in a Slack Channel. Slack was suggesting that people can record a message for people that could not make a meeting.
A Better Use Case for Slack Clips – Video Learning
Aragon feels that Slack Clips is a great way to share daily updates or to share video learning files. For sales teams, Slack is a popular choice – being able to share a key sales role-play or a daily team update from the Sales Manager.
However, we’d note that video podcasting is already a trend, as is live audio communities – such as Clubhouse. We predict people will use Slack Clips but many are using other tools to share audio and video content, in either a life fashion or offline.
Slack – Enhancements Still Needed in Meetings and Calls
However, we expected Slack to announce enhanced video calls, which while it is a feature they have – they are really video or voice calls – not meetings. Slack is competing in a very tough market. Salesforce wants to get all of its customers to use Slack, and while many are, many are also using Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, or Webex, which all do great at calls, meetings, and chat.
Bottom Line
Slack Clips is a great start towards Salesforce expanding out of just Team Collaboration. That said, Slack missed a year of innovation and many other providers innovated their platforms in a big way. Team Collaboration is an important part of the overall UC&C stack. Salesforce will learn that as they compete in this market now that Slack is a full part of the Salesforce product family.