Microsoft just launched Slack's biggest competitor

Microsoft is officially taking on Slack.

The tech giant is launching Microsoft Teams, new real-time collaboration software that mirrors many of the features of Slack, including rooms, search and more "cultural" tricks like easy sharing of GIFs and memes.

SEE ALSO: Slack is actually an acronym

"Just like Outlook brought together email, contacts and calendar into one magical user experience scaffolding that changed how we worked, Teams will bring together chat, meetings, notes, Office, Planner, Power BI... and other extensions and applications to help users get work done," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at the launch event.  

One of the major differentiators of Microsoft Teams is integration with Office 365. Word, Sharepoint, OneNote, Power BI, Planner and more all connect with Teams directly, letting users share, open and pin individual documents directly in Teams.

A feature that Slack users will find familiar is T-Bot, Microsoft Teams' built-in bot that can interject in conversations or respond directly to queries, especially ones about how to better use the app. Microsoft's bots don't end there, though — there's also WhoBot, which can answer questions about people on the team. If you're not sure who a person is, you can ask, "Who is Ben Walters?" You can also make knowledge queries: "Who knows about ticket sales?" Teams will launch with 85 bots.

Microsoft emphasized the security features of teams. Data is encrypted whether at rest or in transit, the app supports multifactor authorization, and it can be centrally managed from Office 365.

Microsoft Teams launches on Wednesday, Nov. 2 in preview, with general availability in early 2017. It already has 150 partners that support the app, including Asana, HootSuite and Zendesk.

Earlier in day, Slack took out a full-page ad in the New York Times "welcoming" Microsoft as a competitor, though the ad detailed what Slack saw as unique challenges to workplace collaboration, and why a startup like Slack is better suited to meet them than a traditional tech company like Microsoft.