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Credit to Author: Matthew Finnegan| Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2019 09:50:00 -0700<\/strong><\/p>\n Slack has overhauled its desktop software, adding offline access and tweaking the software for faster load times.<\/p>\n Recent efforts to improve the desktop app were highlighted at Slack Frontiers last year<\/a> and the coming update \u2013 which the company says will launch 33% faster than before \u2013 will be available to users \u201cover the next few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n Calls made to team mates via the app should be a speedier too, up to 10 times quicker, Slack said. \u201cThat could mean the difference between showing up to a meeting on time or not,\u201d the company said in a blog post Monday. \u201cThese moments saved can quickly add up, giving you more time to focus on the tasks at hand.\u201d<\/p>\n Slack also said the desktop app will run more efficiently, with a 50% reduction in memory use in some cases. While many users may be unaware of the change, those that routinely switch between memory-draining applications may benefit. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThese changes are mostly under-the-hood and should be unnoticed by users,\u201d said Larry Cannell, a research director at Gartner. \u201cCompanies that use a large number of workspaces will see improvements in desktop memory use and startup times, likely leading to snappier desktop performance for users.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n “I haven\u2019t heard of any problems before this, but it\u2019s good that Slack recognized the limitations in their current approach and moved to fix them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n In addition, the desktop app will soon be available offline, meaning users without an internet connection will still be able to launch the software and view conversations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n On an unrelated note, Slack last week announced that it will reset passwords for users that may have been affected by a 2015 hack. The incident allowed hackers to gain access to a database containing profile information such as usernames and encrypted passwords. The attackers also inserted code that stole passwords in plain text as they were entered by users, prompting Slack to encourage customers to reset passwords.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The company was anonymously tipped off recently that user credentials related to accounts logged in to Slack during the 2015 security incident might be affected. That prompted the decision to reset passwords for all accounts active during that period.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe have no reason to believe that any of these accounts were compromised, but we believe that this precaution is worth any inconvenience the reset may cause,\u201d the company said in a blog post<\/a>. \u201cHowever, we do recognize that this is inconvenient for affected users, and we apologize.\u201d<\/p>\n Those who joined Slack after 2015 \u2013 roughly 99% of its current user base, according to Slack \u2013\u00a0 <\/span>are apparently unaffected, as are accounts that require single-sign through a company\u2019s network. Slack has 10 million daily active users according to stats released in January<\/a>.<\/p>\n The company recently completed its successful public listing, with a valuation of around $19.5 billion on its first day of trading, and is under pressure from rival Microsoft; the Redmond, Wash. developer now claims that its Teams app has 13 million daily users<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield downplayed the competitive threat at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference last week, pointing out that Microsoft came to prominence facing the dominance of IBM, while Microsoft lost out to Google in search, which in turn saw its social network lose out to Facebook.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe lesson that we take from that is that a smaller company, if it has real traction with customers, in some cases has a bit of an advantage against a large incumbent with multiple lines of business,\u201d Butterfield said. He argued that the larger a company gets, the harder it is to maintain a focus on quality of user experience.<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever Microsoft does, we are still going to do the same thing that we would do for our customers,\u201d he said. \u201cSo if the performance of our application – like the number of milliseconds it takes to start up – is an important thing for customers, then we will do that. If shared channels are an important feature, we will develop that.\u201d<\/p>\n http:\/\/www.computerworld.com\/category\/security\/index.rss<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Credit to Author: Matthew Finnegan| Date: Mon, 22 Jul 2019 09:50:00 -0700<\/strong><\/p>\n Slack has overhauled its desktop software, adding offline access and tweaking the software for faster load times.<\/p>\n Recent efforts to improve the desktop app were highlighted at Slack Frontiers last year<\/a> and the coming update \u2013 which the company says will launch 33% faster than before \u2013 will be available to users \u201cover the next few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n