No Slack for you! Microsoft puts rival app on internal list of 'prohibited and discouraged' software

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

https://www.geekwire.com/2019/no-slack-microsoft-puts-rival-app-internal-list-prohibited-discouraged-software/

By Nat Levy & Todd Bishop
GeekWire
June 21, 2019

As Slack makes its stock market debut, there’s a major company that won’t 
be allowing its employees to use the business collaboration and chat app 
as part of their daily work.

It’s Microsoft, and it’s not just because the Redmond giant is Slack’s 
biggest competitor through its own Microsoft Teams collaboration app. At 
least, that’s not the primary stated reason. And it turns out Slack is far 
from the only piece of popular technology to earn this distinction.

GeekWire obtained an internal Microsoft list of prohibited and discouraged 
technology — software and online services that the company doesn’t want 
its employees using as part of their day-to-day work. We first picked up 
on rumblings of the prohibition from Microsoft employees who were 
surprised that they couldn’t use Slack at work, before tracking down the 
list and verifying its authenticity.

While the list references the competitive nature of these services in some 
situations, the primary criteria for landing in the “prohibited” category 
are related to IT security and safeguarding company secrets.

[...]

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