Slack, the new kid on the block in messaging apps for teams, continues to show growth. As they look to take on heavy-hitters such as Google Hangouts and Skype, Slack has announced that they will soon be testing voice and video chat. These new features will come to fruition via Slack’s acquisition of Screenhero in January of last year.

Slack continues to grow its userbase of roughly 2.3 million daily users, and is looking to add features most business teams need to effectively communicate throughout the work day. Slack is already a great cross-platform tool for text messaging with a clean design, easy file-sharing, and integrations with leading productivity tools. One thing it’s missing? Voice and video chat, although there is a Skype integration that allows for voice calls through launching the Skype app. In-app voice/video messaging would be a big boon for users, greatly increasing Slack’s messaging potential and reducing the need for other team messaging software. This addition should pay huge dividends for Slack, allowing them to compete with the likes of Hangouts and Skype who already offer a one-stop-shop of text and video/voice messaging.

Also on their development roadmap for this year is a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor for the platform to further increase custom text communication, shared channels for communicating across different departments/teams or outside contractors/agencies, improving billing system to facilitate easier team startups, and building our their Search, Learning, & Intelligence division to further new integrations with Slack.

With Slack’s user base increase and their commitment to improving the Slack platform, it looks like they will be a big player in the enterprise messaging world. We can’t wait to test drive the new services.