Stride is a new Slack competitor from the makers of Hipchat
Hipchat, the venerable team communication app owned by business software maker Atlassian, is making way for a sequel. The company today introduced Stride, which replicates the core of Hipchat while adding natively hosted audio and video meetings, task and decision tracking, and a “focus” mode that collects important notifications for you while you concentrate on getting things done.
The app, which will roll out “gradually” on the web, MacOS, iOS, Windows, Android, and Linux, illustrates the tech industry’s growing fascination with team communication apps. Slack launched in 2013 and rocketed to 5 million daily users and 1.5 million paying customers — a speed of growth that is all but unheard of for business software. Its success has...