One of the more surprising bits of news out of Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference this week was the announcement that Facebook will roll out Office 365 to its 13,000 employees. Facebook CIO Tim Campos discussed the rationale in a blog post:
The people who use Facebook are distributed around the world, and to support them, our people are globally distributed as well. We facilitate their productivity by letting them choose the device and platform that is most effective for them. We collaborate on everything online—no files, no fragmented information stores—and we provide our employees with the ability to work anywhere and in any way they want.
All of this means that our IT has to be flexible and available over the web, on mobile and across platforms—wherever our employees need it. Enabling this mobility requires a secure environment that defends against cyber attacks and protects mobile devices, especially if a device gets stolen or hacked.
This is why we’ve implemented Office 365. Not only is it a mature and comprehensive platform, it meets our stringent security standards, it complements how we work with intelligence, flexibility, and it is continually evolving. It is globally deployed, accessible on every mobile platform we support, and it is secure. Most of all, it enables our productivity with powerful new capabilities for employees, such as the ability to share and edit traditional Excel documents at the same time, across devices.
To be sure, Facebook isn't adopting the entire gamut of Office 365's capabilities. For messaging and collaboration it will continue using its own Facebook at Work product, which competes with Microsoft's Yammer and Skype. Campos told the Wall Street Journal there is still an important role for email, hence the move to Office 365:
“Facebook at Work doesn’t end the need for email,” Mr. Campos said. “It’s not a binary thing.”
Overall, the announcement holds significant symbolic value not just as a high-profile example of co-opetition, but also as a commentary on the state of the collaboration and social networking market.
"Facebook is arguably the face (pun intended) of a new generation of sharing information and connecting with people," says Constellation Research VP and principal analyst Alan Lepofsky. "Yet to run their own business, they understand the need for personal productivity and team collaboration tools."
"Facebook working with Microsoft, shows that Facebook understands Microsoft is evolving their portfolio to a new modern way of working," Lepofsky adds. "Microsoft has several new tools such as Sway for telling stories and Delve for surfacing information. Most noticeably, both companies are investing heavily in chat bots as a way of interacting with people, data and services. I see a great deal of similarity in their philosophies and product roadmaps."
"I look forward to seeing how the two organizations integrate Facebook at Work and Office365," Lepofsky says. "I don't just mean at the user experience level, but more so at the underlining graph level. At a higher level than specific features, what I think is important about this announcement is that it shows the two organizations have similar visions and are interested in working together."
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