Slack has been moving ahead very quickly and gaining a lot of ground in the communication and collaboration space which has been a growing market. Microsoft announced Microsoft Teams last week at Ignite and an updated Skype interface. Google is very much into the chat space with multiple messengers and Gsuite. Facebook put their hand into the mix as well with Facebook for Work another competitor for collaboration software market.

Oracle is a large user of slack with almost 30,000 workers who actively use Slack for work. Oracle who does offer Oracle Communications Messaging Server has never really taken off like Skype, Lync, Google Hangouts and others over the years. It makes a lot of sense for Oracle to partner with Slack as Oracle has never managed to get into the message space and Slack has an already large user base Oracle can help leverage, grow and integrate with their products.

The plan is to integrate Oracle enterprise software into the messaging tools. Oracle is currently developing chatbots that will roll out to Slack and Oracle users in the coming months. Oracle and Slack plan for the bots to deliver great features.

You can use the chatbots to ask “how many vacation days do I have left this year?” and instantaneously receive a response from an Oracle chatbot, said Suhas Uliyar, Oracle vice president of bots, artificial intelligence, and mobile.

Oracle will be working integrate Slack with their sales, human resources, and business software.

Oracle is realizing the business world is changing and younger workers want to use message platforms to get work done. Companies like Snapchat and Facebook have put lots of money into their message platforms because users are going that route. This has even been the case in the telco world as many users are making calls through messengers and cell phones rather than using office or desk phones. Oracle is seeing the change and adapting with the times.