But Slack’s public listing followed two less hyped, but likewise successful, business-to-business IPOs: video conferencing company Zoom in April and network and security company Fastly in May. Together these IPOs suggest that even as the consumer tech market is dominated by Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google, companies that sell to businesses can still find ways to compete with the big guys.

When Slack launched its chat app in 2013, its most direct competitor was HipChat, made by Atlassian, which had its own successful IPO in 2015. Slack usage soon surged past HipChat usage, and Atlassian shuttered HipChat last year to focus on other products. But it also competed with numerous other workplace communication tools, from email to corporate social networks to old fashioned intranets. Zoom goes head to head with Cisco’s well-entrenched WebEx. Fastly found a market despite competition from the likes of Akamai. It’s hard to find similar examples among consumer tech, where new competitors tend to either sell out to the big four or remain perpetual also-rans.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.wired.com