Instant messaging has become an important part of business communications. Excellent availability, unmatched ease of use, and short response times are just a few of its numerous benefits. There is, however, one major challenge for companies: choosing the right service.
Chat apps for private users are not suitable for business purposes because they lack the means for administration and user management, don’t offer any business features, and, more often than not, fall short in terms of security and data protection. There are, of course, services specifically designed for companies, which roughly fall into three categories:
- Secure instant messengers: Stashcat, Threema Work, Wickr, and Wire
- Collaboration tools: Google Chat and MS Teams
- Engagement apps: Beekeeper and Staffbase
To illustrate how the different services stack up against one another, we have compiled a comprehensive comparison that reveals the key differences and shows which requirements are met by which services.
The comparison confirms: Even if a company already uses a collaboration tool or an engagement app, a secure instant messenger is still a must. Services like MS Teams or Staffbase do not provide the security level required for the exchange of sensitive company data. They also don’t fulfill the staff’s need for an intuitive app that’s similar to Threema or WhatsApp in terms of usability and features.
That said, even among the business messengers that are supposed to be secure, significant differences emerge in the area of security and data privacy. It’s safe to say that not all apps are cut from the same cloth. See for yourself: