Atlassian to Discontinue Stride – What Are Your Options?

Less than a year after launching Stride into the increasingly competitive market of instant messaging, Atlassian has announced it will discontinue the platform following a deal struck with rival Slack. As part of the deal, Atlassian has also agreed to discontinue Hipchat, while Slack will pay an unspecified amount to acquire both Stride and Hipchat’s intellectual property.

What Are Your Options?

If you’re one of the many Stride users, you’re probably wondering what this means for you. Well, despite the field of instant messaging getting a bit smaller with this news, you’re still pretty spoiled for choice. As team communication strategies continue to change, enterprise instant messaging has become a must for nearly every workplace. This means the competition is fiercer than ever. And that’s good news for you. But it also poses an important question – where do you turn?

First and foremost, keep in mind not only the features you’ll need, but also your devices and their operating systems, and vitally, security. In today’s hyperconnected world, the security of both your and your enterprise’s data must be a top priority and you need an instant messenger that’s looking out for you.

Below we’ll lay out a few of your options, each with their own unique benefits to enhance your team communication and collaboration.

Slack

Launched in 2014, Slack is well-known in the world of instant messaging. Importantly, the popular team-chat service is offering Atlassian customers a transition to its platform. Already used by more than 500,000 organizations and boasting over 8 million daily users, Slack is banking on the majority of Atlassian customers to utilize this migration path.

So why has Slack become such a hit? Integration options and features like the Slackbot, for starters. The Slackbot gets you started by answering your inquiries, allowing you to customize Slackbot responses, and reminding you of tasks and deadlines. Then, by taking advantage of Slack’s integration capabilities, you can add third-party apps like Dropbox, Google Drive, and Trello for project management. This allows for easier collaboration and sharing of content.

Slack has also simplified the sharing of links. When pasting a link into a chat, the app automatically adds a headline, description, and picture, so you don’t have to. Finally, if you’re planning to migrate to Slack, familiarize yourself with the shortcuts. Slack provides a number of keyboard shortcuts to make your life easier.

All of that aside, Slack has been Stride’s main competition until now and some users may not be comfortable with this transition. If that’s the case, you could be wondering what other alternatives are out there. Here are a few.

Microsoft Teams

You’re surely familiar with Microsoft and its range of personal computers, software, and consumer electronics. You may not have known, though, that it’s now a player in the field of instant messaging. Just over a year old, Microsoft Teams combines workplace chat, meetings, notes, and attachments.

Teams serves 200,000 business and offers much of what you’d expect from an enterprise instant messenger – one-on-one and team chat, document collaboration, and more. Perhaps the biggest benefit, though, is that it’s fully integrated with Microsoft Office 365. This integration duplicates the functionality of apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Meetings, and SharePoint and displays them as associated tabs within the chat. So there’s no more toggling back and forth between apps. Teams is also making use of bots. The T-bot gets you started while the WhoBot can effectively act as a secretary, pulling out company data such as personnel and department.

What’s more, Teams is currently interoperable with Skype for Business. Since September, Microsoft has been in the process of enhancing Teams as it integrates Skype for Business into the Teams platform and prepares for the influx of Skype users.

The functionality of Skype for Business and integration with Office 365 combine to not only make Teams strong competition for Slack, but a strong option for you and your enterprise.

Brosix

These days, effective and efficient communication is only part of the puzzle. You also need to be proactive in securing both your and your enterprise’s data. Brosix gives you both – enhanced workplace productivity and peace of mind.

Brosix has been an industry leader in enterprise instant messaging since 2006. Not only do you get all the tools for a more productive work environment – text, group, and voice and video chat, unlimited size file transfer, plus a number of collaboration capabilities – but you also get one of the most administrative and secure instant messengers on the market. Brosix’s private messaging network, customizable features control, and comprehensive chat history archive give you absolute control over your internal communication.

Communication via Brosix is always peer to peer. In addition, end-to-end 256-bit encryption, as well as the ability to integrate your anti-virus software, means your instant messages, voice and video chats, file transfers, and screenshots are safe from malicious outside threats.

As an all-in-one package, Brosix provides your workplace all the necessary features for streamlined and secure communication and collaboration. Better yet, at an affordable price and compatible across all your devices and platforms. As a solution for your real-time communication needs, you can’t go wrong.

To Conclude

Where you turn after Stride is ultimately down to you and your communication needs. That of course means you’ll need to do your homework in the search for your internal communication and collaboration alternative. But as this list demonstrates, with options like Slack, Teams, and Brosix, there’s an appropriate solution for you and your enterprise.