The findings come from a survey of 900 IT companies distributed across the US and Europe.

Did you know we have a cryptocurrency and blockchain event?

It’s called Hard Fork Decentralized

Oh really?

Slack, on the other hand, has seen more modest growth, according to the Spiceworks report. Its market share grew from 13 percent in 2016 to 15 percent in 2018.

“The sudden rise of Microsoft Teams is likely influenced by the fact that it’s available at no additional cost to Office 365 users,” said Peter Tsai, senior technology analyst at Spiceworks, in a statement.

The report predicts that Teams will reach 41 percent market penetration by 2020, while Slack will command 18 percent of the market. Just 12 percent plan to use Google Hangouts (it’s not clear if this refers to Hangouts Meet or the legacy version of the service), while a mere 1 percent plan to use Workplace by Facebook.

When asked about their perceptions of Microsoft Teams, the respondents said that they perceived it as the most secure product. Slack, on the other hand, was regarded as more innovative. Skype for Business, although loathed by many, ranked highly in terms of reliability and user-friendliness.

The success of Microsoft Teams felt inevitable, as many businesses are wedded to the Microsoft ecosystem. That said, it’s unlikely to replicate Slack’s success when it comes to hosting smaller teams and non-business online communities.

If you’re a chat sceptic, you can at least take comfort in the fact that it’s unlikely to replace email in the workplace. Only 16 percent of the IT professionals that responded to Spiceworks’ survey thought collaborative chat apps will completely usurp email within the next 3-5 years.

To see the full survey results, click here.