Rather than differentiate its product from Microsoft Teams, Slack Technologies is using the courts to compensate for its lack of creativity.

Admittedly is it not easy to compete with Microsoft. This is especially true when your product is an undifferentiated horizontal offering. Rather than compete in the courts (Slack Files EU Competition Complaint Against Microsoft), we would prefer that Slack Technologies led by founder/CEO Stewart Butterfield compete by creating differentiated IP. Building domain-specific workflow into its messaging platform would be a good place to start. Tightening expenses would also make sense. Slack generated an 89% gross margin in the most recent quarter on revenue of $202 million yet only managed to generate $9 million of operating cash flow. Spending 47% of revenue on Sales & Marketing won’t compensate for a product offering that lacks sustainable competitive differentiation.

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