Mattermost, an open source B2B technology company, has officially entered the $30 billion collaboration market with a new collaboration tool to take on the likes of Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex Teams. As a secure, self-hosted and highly scalable solution, Mattermost is targeted at enterprises whose engineers need a messaging platform that lets them move at startup speed.
Mattermost suggests that Uber even dropped Slack to build their own messaging platform on Mattermost. Other customers on the Mattermost books include Amazon, Boeing, BMW, Ericsson, ING, Sharp and Tesla. Mattermost's sweet spot is where the likes of Slack and Microsoft Teams fall short. The developer community is one that demands instant change, immediate product updates and flexible support - especially when it comes to security and privacy.
Mattermost enters the market
I spoke with Mattermost CEO, Ian Tien, to find out why Mattermost was a new name for me in the collaboration arena. Ian said that they have been majorly focussed in the developer community, rather than in mainstream Unified Comms. He referenced to functionality like voice, video and screen sharing as the commoditised first generation of Unified Comms.
"The next generation of collaboration is working with someone to creating something. The next level is about tools integration. Everyone wants to compete with tech giants"
Ian further explained the Mattermost focus in the enterprise developer community. "The only thing more important than developer productivity is security. Preventing breaches and privacy issues is the world we live in. These developer teams all want to integrate all these different tools and they need them to be flawless. If there's one gap in the armour, it can be catastrophic".
Security requirements
Mattermost is aligned to the side of information security teams who want to run the Mattermost source code through scanning tools and partner to make sure they have a platform that meets their needs. Ian told me:
