Slack and Amazon Web Services agree on a multi-year deal
Communications platform also posts 50% revenue increase from the first quarter of 2020


Slack has agreed on a multi-year partnership with AWS that will see its voice and video calling features integrated with Amazon Chime.
The partnership announcement comes a day after Slack reported its revenues increased 50% to $201.7 million in its first-quarter earnings. This also included a 28% rise in paid customers.
Its latest paid customer is tech giant Amazon, which has agreed to adopt Slack within its workforce as part of the deal. In the other direction, Slack will use a range of AWS services, including storage, compute, database, security, analytics, and machine learning, to develop new collaboration features.
The agreement will see 'Slack Calls', it's service for all voice and video calling, integrated into Amazon's video conferencing platform Chime, a service that has similar call functions to Microsoft Teams.
"The future of enterprise software will be driven by the combination of cloud services and workstream collaboration tools," said Stewart Butterfield, CEO and co-founder of Slack.
"By integrating AWS services with Slack's channel-based messaging platform, we're helping teams easily and seamlessly manage their cloud infrastructure projects and launch cloud-based services without ever leaving Slack."
Slack will also use AWS's global infrastructure to support enterprise customers adopting its platform, making use of the recently announced data residency. Revealed in May, the updated zones allow Slack customers to select from a greater number of regions in Europe to help them store their data locally and fulfil compliance requirements. The deal will allow Slack to build on this offering by taking advantage of AWS infrastructure.
Get the ITPro daily newsletter
Sign up today and you will receive a free copy of our Future Focus 2025 report - the leading guidance on AI, cybersecurity and other IT challenges as per 700+ senior executives
While Slack's first-quarter results beat expectations, the 50% jump was in fact lower than many investors had anticipated, according to TechCrunch. Immediately after its earnings report, an investor sell-off resulted in a 4.4% drop in shares.
The firm reported rapid growth following the outbreak of the coronavirus in March. The mass adoption of cloud-based services led some investors to expect a little more than 50%.
Bobby Hellard is ITPro's Reviews Editor and has worked on CloudPro and ChannelPro since 2018. In his time at ITPro, Bobby has covered stories for all the major technology companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook, and regularly attends industry-leading events such as AWS Re:Invent and Google Cloud Next.
Bobby mainly covers hardware reviews, but you will also recognize him as the face of many of our video reviews of laptops and smartphones.
-
Cisco takes aim at AI security at RSAC with ServiceNow partnership
News The companies claim Cisco AI Defense and ServiceNow SecOps will help address new challenges raised by AI
By Jane McCallion
-
Why veterans can excel in data centers – and could help the IT sector address its skill shortages
In-depth Ex-military workers can bring software and hardware to civilian roles
By John Loeppky
-
'Digital hide-and-seek': Workers are wasting hundreds of hours a year sourcing the information they need to carry out their role
News Knowledge workers globally are wasting a quarter of their working week tracking down information, new research from Atlassian has revealed.
By George Fitzmaurice
-
Untethered: How CIOs and CISOs are paving the way for the new hybrid workforce
Whitepaper Effective techniques to transition from exposed legacy infrastructure to an effective zero trust strategy
By ITPro
-
Unlocking the power of your digital services
Sponsored Businesses have invested significant cash into technology since COVID-19, but are they really getting their money's worth?
By ITPro
-
Delivering fast and secure digital experiences for the modern hybrid workforce
Whitepaper A new approach to digital experience monitoring that can monitor the health of all systems
By ITPro
-
Collaboration is the glue that holds your business together
SPONSORED A combination of productivity tools and cloud telephony can enable the best from your workforce
By ITPro
-
The future of work and the forgotten workforce
whitepaper How to deploy a mobile-first strategy so no one gets left behind
By ITPro
-
The case for an accelerated device refresh cycle
Whitepaper Achieving a more cost-effective device lifecycle overall
By ITPro
-
Employees are choosing how they work
Whitepaper And with the right secure digital strategy, this could be a great thing for your business: today and far into the future
By ITPro