To set expectations straight away if you are expecting an answer please don’t be disappointed – I don’t know what Microsoft are or plan to do with Kaizala. This article will be entirely speculative and based on no sourced information.
If you are deploying Office 365 or planning to in 2019 I do think you need to find an answer to what Microsoft plan to do with Kaizala.
Kaizala is a mobile messaging app built for iOS and Android with many features similar to WhatsApp, initially released for countries where low bandwidth mobiles dominate. You can have one-to-one and group chats, voice, video and bot integration. Hold on a minute isn’t that what Microsoft Teams does I hear you say. And you would be correct there is a significant overlap between the Teams Chat function and Kaizala. Through to this November the discussion between Teams and Kaizala was academic – Kaizala not being available for Office 365, this changed in November Kaizala now being available for Office 365 commercial tenants.
So why did Microsoft choose to release Kaizala to Office 365? Redmond don’t simply release new services onto Office 365 in a random fashion. As I mentioned before I have no knowledge as to why but here are a few possible ideas:
- WhatsApp is huge in business and IT professionals are becoming more concerned about the use of a consumer app for business decisions. IT pros and management however just can’t say don’t use it – they need to provide an alternative. Kaizala being integrated with Office 365 gives the under siege IT pro/management a viable substitute.
- Teams Chat adoption may not be as high as OCS/Lync/Skype. I’ve written many times that Teams is fundamental to any Office 365 deployment but its strength lies more in Meetings and Collaboration rather than Chat. Using Teams for non IT people requires effort and thought which does not induce viral usage of chat. On the flip side there are also issues of over-usage of Teams with reports of Channel and Notification fatigue which chat exacerbates.
- Kaizala would be a viral hit. Office 365 is a rich platform but it can be complicated to deploy with services such as Zoom and Workplace able to challenge the dominant platform. Kaizala reminds me of OCS/Lync. OCS and Lync drew people in, they wanted and often demanded to be allowed access to the service. They’d become accustomed to using Yahoo and Messenger chat but wanted a corporate version which OCS/Lync provided. I’m willing to wager that with very little effort Kaizala would reach a significant percentage of people within weeks of its release. Especially if used in combination with a message on (non)acceptable usage of WhatsApp.
No doubt there are issues and questions before anyone deploys Kaizala and my speculation may be over blown – I’ll try and cover these in Part Two. Meanwhile if you think of any more reasons why Microsoft released Kaizala to Office 365 please feel free to comment.