Microsoft places a ban on its employees from using services such as Slack, Google Docs, and many more -

When you are in a competitive technology market and are a giant then you need to keep your company’s data in tight lockdown to keep those said competitors from taking a look at your conversations and projects.

One said giant that has taken n this precaution to heart most recently is Microsoft. In order to make sure that their competitors are not able to reach through their security to take a peak of its hard work, Microsoft has banned its workforce from using a list of certain online services.

Some of these services are the most renowned ones such as Slack, Google Docs, Amazon Web Services and many more. All these and many other services are known for their professionalism and their ease for employees to communicate with each other as well as data storing and sharing.

However, Microsoft plans that every one of its employees makes sure to keep their information on the programs in-house. In fact, some of Microsoft’s own programs are also not safe just like their GitHub. Microsoft has also banned its employees from using GitHub.

The idea behind this ban is that companies such as Amazon and Google will be able to see into the projects of Microsoft with the help of these services and Microsoft wants to make the competition hard.

Below is the notice from Microsoft to its employees regarding the ban of Slack,

“Slack Free, Slack Standard, and Slack Plus versions do not provide required controls to properly protect Microsoft Intellectual Property (IP). Existing users of these solutions should migrate chat history and files related to Microsoft business to Microsoft Teams, which offers the same features and integrated Office 365 apps, calling and meeting functionality. Learn more about the additional features that Teams can provide your workgroup. Slack Enterprise Grid version complies with Microsoft security requirements; however, we encourage the use of Microsoft Teams rather than competitive software.”

Another interesting yet strange addition on the list of banned services by Microsoft is Grammarly; a toll used for grammar and spelling corrections. While it is a nice tool, it records every keystroke that users tend to make in their documents and emails.