Facebook Workplace

2024. Meta is shutting down Workplace, its enterprise communications business



In a decision that seemed both inevitable and mildly perplexing—rather like the discovery that your towel has mysteriously disappeared from a perfectly ordinary pocket dimension—Meta has decided to bid farewell to Facebook Workplace, its plucky little business communication platform. The company, with the sort of optimism usually reserved for the moments before a disaster-prone starship launch, is now pivoting towards the infinitely buzzier realms of AI and the metaverse, which it insists will revolutionize work as we know it. Workplace will keep its lights on until September 2025, but for those feeling abandoned, Meta recommends embracing the newly Zoom-acquired Workvivo as a replacement—though, admittedly, Workplace’s revenues were never going to rival the ad-fueled billions from Facebook and Instagram. Still, it was a useful reminder that Meta's ambitions stretch far beyond cat memes and oversharing.


2017. Facebook Workplace gets standalone mobile apps



Facebook Workplace, the business-focused version of Facebook, is officially breaking out messaging features into a standalone app for desktop and mobile called Workplace Chat. Now, Workplace users can access messaging features like screen and file sharing, private and group messages, and video calling all in one app. Speaking of video calling, Facebook plans to add group video calling to Workplace's repertoire of messaging features "in the coming months." Facebook Workplace now counts more than 30,000 businesses and organizations using the software. That group, more than double what Workplace claimed six months ago, includes names like Starbucks, Spotify, Lyft, and Walmart.


2016. Facebook Workplace will open app store to compete with Slack



One of the success secrets of the super-popular collaboration service Slack is its ability to easily integrate third-party business apps. For example, it lets your team quickly discuss the new deal pulled from CRM system or process the new ticket that came from Helpdesk or add to discussion a customer that is using Skype. Facebook has found out this secret and now wants to replicate it in its new enterprise social network Workplace. For this they are launching a platform for developers that enables easy integration with other apps. Then these integrations will appear in the Workplace app store. For now the network features integration with Google's G Suite, Microsoft's cloud Active Directory and with single sign-on services Okta and OneLogin.