A Prediction about Slack's Product Roadmap

I’m currently watching Slack’s investor video (it’s excellent!), and I swear they’re describing Slack as a Business Operating System — without using those words.

Video found here: Slack’s Investor Video

The platform that everything sits on, connecting different data sources, tools, jobs and functions? That definitely sounds like an operating system to me.

I’m writing this down today so I can look back in a few years to see if my hunch has paid off — that Slack launches a new core product based on doing non-messaging work inside Slack, with messaging as a core, enabling product extension.

With all of the investment and work they’ve put into integrating different systems to Slack, it seems like a natural extension for them that one day you’ll load Slack and go to the ‘Homepage’ and do work from within the client, rather than ever loading the underlying apps.

If I can do a multiplication calculation in a browser bar or using Mac’s Spotlight, why would I ever use a calculator? I think a similar concept could apply to Slack and the multitude of SaaS products integrated with it one day.

In general, that seems like a pretty effective strategic flywheel for them to create.

Integrate all of your collaboration, communication, productivity and workload within one core operating system? That concept sounds compelling — and like something that just gets better and better the more you invest in it, both for users, workplaces, Slack and integrated SaaS products.

—

Ps.

It’s a total coincidence that my first two blog posts are about Slack — future posts will be on a range of subjects (I’ve got a long list of post ideas about digital product design, coding, tech, careers, and a few other hard to label topics).

If you enjoyed this post and want to read future posts, please follow my RSS feed and follow me at @jasontcrabtree on Twitter.