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Facebook once had magnanimous ambitions to be a major player in enterprise communicating and productiveness , but today the societal electronic internet ’s parent company Meta will be closing a very significant chapter in that story . TechCrunch has learned that Meta is shuttering Workplace , a version of Facebook that had been build up to enable communicating among stage business teams and wider organizations .
We have turn over out to the company for comment but our germ say us that the company design to make an official announcement later today . The root say that it will be byplay as usual on the platform until the get-go of September 2025 ( specifically August 25 ) . Then , it will be read - only until May 2026 . Then , the religious service will be completely decommissioned .
accord to a memo to Workplace customers , the caller is is recommend Zoom - owned Workvivo as a migration - quick alternative . Workvivo , another enterpise communicating platform , wasacquired by Zoom in 2023 . We have the full Meta memoranda below .
It ’s not absolved yet how many employee will be impacted by the occlusion .
Update : “ We are stop Workplace from Meta so we can focus on building AI and metaverse engineering that we believe will essentially remold the way we go , ” a source later tell us . “ Over the next two years , we will provide our Workplace customers the option to transition to Zoom ’s Workvivo product , Meta ’s only preferred migration pardner . ” Others like Bloomberg and Reuters have also since account the news . ( original article continues below )
The alteration marks the end of a ten - year outpouring for the mathematical product , which had grown plans to bring a differentiated revenue flow to Facebook but finally witness it too hard to compete against the likes of Slack and later on Teams from Microsoft .
The division has been up in the breeze strategically for a while , so this should not come as too much of a surprise . We had even heard that in the aftermath of Covid , Meta wasapproached by outside investment firmsto spin out the segmentation as a standalone company that would then get away investing .
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Meta declined , a reference said , primarily because Facebook ( and now Meta ) saw Workplace as a “ strategical asset ” . That was not because work generates sales anywhere tight to the billions Meta create from advertising on platform like Facebook and Instagram , but because it was authoritative for lay out a more diverse facial expression to the market . And it helped Meta make a case about its diverse offerings to other stakeholders , render regulators that it was more than just a too - brawny social net , and showing organizations that Facebook could do more for them than just sell ads .
“ It help make Facebook [ and Meta ] seem like an grownup , ” the source said .
Clearly , the company ’s priorities are changing to focus on AI and so that could mean other reorganization beyond this over time .
Workplaceoriginally builtout of how Facebook itself was using its flagship societal mesh . It was already running a more closed version of Facebook for its own internal team , and the company see an opportunity to work up that out as a product to place stage business users .
Its working statute title was Facebook @ Work and it was built out by a squad based in London and channelise up by Lars Rasmussen , a co - creator of Google Maps who was brought on by Facebook and was working as the company ’s head of technology . ( He long wanted to build an endeavor serve at Facebook , and this was his child . )
finally the intersection launched out of beta asWorkplaceand carry on to build out a number ofthird - party integrationsas Facebook saw an chance to make more productivity hooks for users around the canonical purpose of communicating .
Over time Workplace managed to pick up some very pregnant client , but finally there was an unexpected curve in the road , however . Slack was a viral hit and was finding huge adhesive friction , which in turn spurred the introduction of Teams from Microsoft . Workplace initially sic out to hold its own against these , but finally cede basis andpartneredwith Teams for sure functionality .
Over clip a figure of key employees building Workplace give , and a source narrate us that the ware never really recovered after Covid .
“ Growth slowed down ” after the pandemic , the origin said , and with the company in somewhat of an identity crisis these days — after all , it ’s not even yell Facebook anymore , and it ’s not even clear that Meta makes much sense either — “ it also shows that it is being more decisive by killing all non - core undertaking . ”
Here ’s the company ’s memo to customers :
Dear Workplace admin ,
Today , we ’re sharing that we ’ve made the difficult decision to close Workplace from Meta in 2026 .
We empathise that this determination will be disruptive to the businesses , organizations and partners that bank on Workplace every day . Our priority is to make the transition as smooth as possible .
Timelines
Our current plans allow for you to keep using Workplace as usual until August 31 , 2025 . explanation management and customer support teams will remain uncommitted to accost any question or concerns you may have during this time . to boot , Meta will be discounting Workplace by 50 % start September 1 , 2024 .
From September 1 , 2025 until May 31 , 2026 , Workplace will be free of flush and only be accessible to read and download live data , after which , memory access will be terminated and your Workplace instance will be deleted .
Download your data
To download your information , you could turn on the Download Your entropy pecker for your users so they can download their data right away from their work configurations . If you would like to export information from your Workplace , you may use the Workplace API .
While we appreciate you may already have an live engineering science partner , Workvivo by Zoom is Meta ’s only preferred migration spouse , and we will be do work with Zoom to provide additional creature and armed service to facilitate a better changeover for customers from Workplace to Zoom ’s Workvivo intersection .
update to include Meta ’s confirmation .
Have a news program tip ? get hold of me securely on Signal via ingrid.101 orhere . No PR pitches , please .
