The decision means more consolidation for the collaboration market; IBM says its team chat app failed to ‘resonate’ with users. Credit: Stephen Lawson/IDG IBM has decided to end support for its Watson Workspace team chat app, citing a lack of customer traction. The decision follows the sale of IBM’s software assets – including legacy collaboration applications such as IBM Notes, Domino and Connections – to Indian technology services provider HCL for $1.8 billion in December. A preview of Watson Workspace, announced in 2016, touted IBM Watson’s cognitive computings capabilities. Watson’s AI underpinned features such as Workspace Moments, which promised to reduce the noise of collaboration by summarizing posts within the chat app. However, it struggled to gain adoption amid a booming and highly-competitive team collaboration market dominated by the likes of Slack, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts Chat, Cisco Webex Teams and others. “While there is no question that Watson Workspace is innovative and agile, it hasn’t resonated with clients or obtained the traction in the marketplace necessary for IBM to continue forward with the service,” IBM said in a statement on the Watson Workspace website. “Despite our best efforts and enthusiasm for these offerings, our decision to withdraw them aligns to IBM’s investment strategy focused on delivering solutions that deliver measurable value to our customers and business partners,” the company said. IBM has stopped accepting new orders for Watson Workspace, and expects to end the service for both free and paid customers on Feb. 28. The company said it is now working with customers on migration and will provide a tool to download and save conversations and content held in the app. A spokesperson said IBM “continues to prioritize investments in high-value segments of the IT industry,” such as “AI for business, hybrid cloud, cybersecurity, analytics, supply chain and blockchain as well as industry-specific cognitive platforms and solutions including healthcare, industrial IOT, and financial services.” At launch, Watson Workspace was expected to modernize IBM’s communication and collaboration portfolio by offering an alternative to Slack. “Unfortunately it was never clear to IBM’s customers or partners, or even many IBM employees where Watson Workspace fit into the portfolio along with IBM Connections and IBM Notes/Domino,” said Alan Lepofsky, vice president and principal analyst at Constellation Research. “With HCL taking over the core IBM collaboration portfolio, it was inevitable that IBM would end of life Watson Workspace,” he said. Watson Workspace’s demise was likely due to a lack of support from IBM as the team collaboration market picked up speed, rather than problems with the app itself. “Workspace probably did resonate with customers, but not on a high enough scale to keep it going,” said Jon Arnold at J Arnold & Associates. “I don’t think IBM makes any ‘bad’ products. So [IBM’s decision] is likely more a case of not properly supporting it to become more sticky and gain wider adoption,” Arnold said. Watson Workspace offered a free tier – alongside paid Plus and Essentials options – that can be difficult to convert to paid subscriptions and may have been an unattractive business model for IBM, which has prioritized other areas of its business. “IBM isn’t the only vendor to struggle with these types of platforms,” said Arnold. “They have all started out with great excitement, but are difficult to monetize.” IBM is not the first big-name tech vendor to discontinue its team chat app. Last year, Atlassian announced the sale of its Stride app to Slack; Stride will be discontinued as of mid-February. More consolidation is coming in the workplace collaboration market, according to Arnold. “The space is maturing, but it will also thin out the next one to two years,” he said. “Only the ones who can scale cost-effectively and start accruing decent revenues from enterprise customers will survive.” Related content news analysis Apple earnings: About that iPhone 'slump' in China Based on information from Thursday's earnings report, it seems that data pointing to an iPhone slump in China were over-baked. By Jonny Evans May 03, 2024 9 mins iMac iPhone Apple news Microsoft begins to phase out ‘classic’ Teams Microsoft is encouraging Teams customers to move to the new, faster version of the collaboration app; the older version will be switched off next year. By Matthew Finnegan May 03, 2024 3 mins Microsoft Teams Collaboration Software Productivity Software news analysis Apple confirms it will open up the iPad in Europe this fall The latest efforts to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act mean developers can offer to side load apps to both iPhones and iPads in the EU. Apple has also taken steps to improve what it offers to smaller and non-commercial developers in the By Jonny Evans May 02, 2024 6 mins iPad Apple Mobile Apps news Udacity offers laid-off US workers free access to its courses for 30 days Sign-ups will be available over the next 30 days By Lucas Mearian May 02, 2024 4 mins Technology Industry IT Jobs IT Skills Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe