The study analyzed 30 work-related platforms, considering data on the number of major global outages, the average duration of these outages, and the total number of affected users to calculate a reliability score for each service. 

The focus was solely on major global outages where the platform was completely unavailable for all its functions.

Global Outages: Summary of the Findings

Key Highlights

Monday.com was the platform with the most frequent outages, experiencing 10 major crashes last year — almost once every month. These outages lasted an average of 45 minutes and impacted 225,000 users, resulting in the lowest reliability score of 25.5.

Gmail and Microsoft Teams each experienced six major crashes, but the impact was largely different. Gmail’s crashes affected over 1.8 billion users, over 20% of the world’s population, with an average outage duration of 3.5 hours. 

Microsoft Teams, however, had the longest outages in the study, with each lasting over five hours on average, affecting 280 million users. Despite this, Gmail maintained a higher reliability score of 55.0 compared to Microsoft Teams’ 20.7.

Slack and Outlook both had five crashes, but like Microsoft Teams, Outlook’s outages lasted an average of five hours, impacting 400 million users. In contrast, Slack’s crashes were much shorter — just 45 minutes on average — affecting a smaller user base of 18 million, leading to a significantly higher reliability score of 45.8.

Other platforms like Google Drive, GitHub, ClickUp, Salesforce, Zoom, and Notion each experienced four major outages over the last year. Google Drive, despite its widespread usage affecting over a billion users, managed to maintain the highest reliability score in the study at 61.7. The platform’s outages were shorter, averaging 1.5 hours.

Zoom had longer outages, averaging 2.5 hours, impacting 300 million users, resulting in a reliability score of 44. Notion‘s outages were slightly shorter, averaging 2 hours and affecting 30 million users, earning it a reliability score of 42.5.

A spokesperson for TRG Datacenters commented on the importance of these findings:

“The reliability of a platform is easy to maintain when the user base is relatively small. However, the game changes when a single mistake can affect millions or even billions of users, even if the downtime is as short as 30 minutes. Reliability becomes crucial when enterprises depend on these platforms to deliver results. It’s also important to consider that these platforms serve users across different time zones, so not all users may be impacted equally by an outage.”

This study revealed the challenges faced by widely used platforms in maintaining reliable services, especially as their user bases grow. Both businesses and individuals continue to rely heavily on these platforms for daily operations, hence the importance of minimizing downtime and speedily addressing outages cannot be overstated.

Ethan Bennet from Sonin shares his expert insights on the essential app categories that will empower you to work from anywhere in the world.

1. Communication Apps

Slack

Ethan says, ‘Slack is a messaging app for teams, allowing real-time communication and collaboration. Slack keeps remote teams connected and organized with features like channels, direct messaging, and file sharing.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a comprehensive communication platform that integrates with other Microsoft Office apps. It offers chat, video conferencing, file sharing, and project management tools, making it an excellent choice for remote teams.

Zoom

Zoom is a leading video conferencing and virtual meeting platform that enables remote teams to connect and collaborate in real time. ‘With features like screen sharing, breakout rooms, and recording, Zoom makes remote meetings easy and effective,’ shares Ethan. ‘There are many good reasons why Zoom has become so popular as a conferencing app.’

Skype

Skype is a communication tool that provides video chat, voice call, and instant messaging services. It’s a simple and reliable option for virtual meetings, interviews, and client calls, making it an essential app for remote workers.

Google Meet

Google Meet is a video conferencing app that allows you to connect and collaborate with your team. With features like screen sharing, chat, and live captioning, Google Meet makes it easy to host virtual meetings from anywhere.

2. Project Management Apps

Asana

Asana is a powerful project management tool that helps teams organize, track, and manage their work. Ethan says, ‘With features like task assignments, deadlines, and progress tracking, Asana keeps everyone on the same page, regardless of their location.’

Trello

Trello is a flexible project management app that uses Kanban boards, lists, and cards to organize tasks and workflows. Ethan explains, ‘It’s intuitive and easy to use, making it an ideal choice for remote teams looking to stay organized and productive.’

Monday.com

Monday.com is an organization system that enables teams to run projects and workflows with confidence. It offers customisable templates, time tracking, and collaboration features, making it a powerful tool for remote work.

Jira

Jira is a project management tool developed by Atlassian. Software development teams primarily use it to plan, track, and release software. With features like issue tracking, project tracking, and agile reporting, Jira is a valuable asset for remote software development teams.

3. File Sharing Apps

Google Drive

Google Drive is a cloud-based file storage and synchronization service that allows users to store, share, and collaborate on files and documents from anywhere. Ethan says, ‘Its integration with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides makes it an essential tool for remote work.’

Dropbox

Dropbox is a popular file hosting service offering cloud storage, synchronization, and personal cloud features. With Dropbox, remote teams can easily share files and collaborate on documents, presentations, and more.

OneDrive

OneDrive is a file hosting service and synchronization service operated by Microsoft as part of its suite of Office Online services. It allows users to store files and personal data in the cloud, share files, and synchronize files across Android, Windows, and macOS devices.

4. Virtual Meeting Apps

BlueJeans

BlueJeans is a video conferencing platform that offers a seamless virtual meeting experience. With features like HD video, Dolby Voice, and real-time chat, BlueJeans enables remote teams to collaborate effectively.

Cisco Webex

Cisco Webex is a video conferencing and collaboration platform that allows teams to meet, message, and call from any device. Ethan comments, ‘With features like screen sharing, whiteboarding, and recording, Webex is an excellent choice for remote work.’

GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting is a web-hosted service created and marketed by LogMeIn. It is an online meeting, desktop sharing, and video conferencing software package that enables the user to meet with other computer users, customers, clients, or colleagues via the Internet in real time.

Ethan’s Tips To Leverage Technology And Embrace Remote Work

Tip 1: Establish Clear Communication Channels

Ethan says, ‘Set up communication channels using apps like Slack or Microsoft Teams. Clearly define how and when team members should communicate to ensure everyone stays connected and informed.’

Tip 2: Use Project Management Tools

Utilize project management tools like Asana or Trello to organize tasks, set deadlines, and track progress. This ensures that everyone knows what needs to be done and by what deadline, regardless of their location.

Tip 3: Store Files In The Cloud

Store files in the cloud using apps like Google Drive or Dropbox. This allows team members to access, edit, and collaborate on documents in real time from anywhere in the world.

Tip 4: Schedule Regular Virtual Meetings

Ethan advises, ‘Schedule regular virtual meetings using platforms like Zoom or Skype. This helps to maintain team cohesion, fosters collaboration, and provides an opportunity to address any issues or concerns.’

Tip 5: Foster A Remote-Friendly Culture

Foster a remote-friendly culture within your organization by encouraging open communication, flexibility, and trust. This will help remote workers feel more connected and engaged, increasing productivity and job satisfaction.

Ethan explains, ‘Working remotely becomes a seamless and productive experience with the right apps. Communication, project management, file sharing, and virtual meeting apps empower individuals to work from anywhere, fostering collaboration across teams and time zones.’

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Yet, coverage gaps and alerts across these tools do not get proper and timely attention because of the difficulty engaging company employees busy with their daily work to fix them.

Today, Amplifier Security has launched from stealth with a $3.3m investment and the industry’s first AI-powered human-in-the-loop automation and security copilot that connects the dots between an organization’s existing security stack and their people.

The pre-seed funding round was led by Cota Capital with participation from WestWave Capital and Shift Left Ventures, and included angel investments from industry luminaries and founders of Slack, MobileIron, Centrify, PeopleNet, Skyflow and Mercury.

Enforcing security controls through automation gets pushback from users whose work is disrupted, for example, when a security patch update forces a system reboot during a critical workstream.

Triaging security tool alerts means closing the loop with the end user to determine true versus false positives before taking disruptive actions – a truly burdensome process for everyone.

Security teams do their best to navigate this complex situation — but it often leads to a strained relationship with the workforce.

The Amplifier Security solution extends the value and effectiveness of existing security tools by empowering the entire company to work together towards a much faster response time that dramatically increases the security health and culture of an organization.

Amplifier provides an engagement layer between existing security tools and the workforce through Ampy – a trusted copilot that acts as an AI security buddy who helps employees understand the risk they are creating for the organization and solves their security issues while balancing their productivity.

Building on the experiences people are used to, for example with credit card companies verifying suspicious transactions, Ampy engages with employees, guiding them through security protocols based on real-time insights.

This approach not only speeds up response times but also significantly boosts an organization’s security posture by involving employees directly in the security process.

Amplifier enhances the compliance of existing deployed tools like identity security, MFA, endpoint security, vulnerability scanning and management, SaaS and cloud security, SIEM and security training; and makes adaptive human protection a reality for organizations.

Amplifier Security was founded by Shreyas Sadalgi, CEO and Thomas Donnelly, CTO and President, who both have two decades of experience in enterprise security, IT and automation.

Donnelly is a three-time CISO and CIO with over a decade of experience leveraging human-centric approaches and technology that transformed security in organizations.

He firmly believes that in today’s dynamic and decentralized workplaces, CISOs need to completely rethink how their teams operate by allowing users to self heal their own security issues.

Rather than security operating in the background and interrupting employee productivity at inopportune times, Amplifier delivers an incredible user experience that drives everyone in the workforce to participate in their own security.

“There is a massive gap in the market that is preventing security practitioners from being successful. Most security tools aren’t built to engage users, as they’re always meant to work in the background.” said Shreyas Sadalgi, CEO and co-founder at Amplifier Security. “Amplifier flips the script by engaging employees on behalf of all security tools in a more human-friendly way, where every end-user interaction is a two-way conversation with the right tonality, context, empathy and actionable information based on the security finding and the user role. Our mission with Amplifier is to shift the cybersecurity focus to include both technology and the people who use it, creating a balanced and more secure environment for businesses.”

Amplifier has been engaged with security teams at over 15 companies as its marquee design partners; many who have been using its product in private betas and seeing daily value — hours saved every week toiling in spreadsheets, quick identification of tooling gaps in their environments, and the ability to self-heal common security issues.

“Most organizations haven’t significantly changed their approach to threat management – keeping the old silos between those responsible for security monitoring and those responding to the rest of the employee base.” said Steve Mancini, Head of Security at Guardant Health. “Security teams can no longer operate this way. Security has to be embedded in every function, and that means empowering all employees to participate in security. Even with all the security automations, our employees are the best sensors of the unusual or anomalous at every level of our business. They enable us to quickly get context when we notice suspicious behavior and identify incidents faster based on their proactive observations.”

Cal Henderson, co-founder of Slack added:

“The way we operated our corporate security engineering program closely aligns with the design principles at the core of Amplifier Security’s vision. I’m a firm believer that engaging the workforce for security automation with a productivity platform like Slack is the only modern way to solve today’s dynamic cybersecurity threat landscape.”

Aditya Singh, Partner at Cota Capital commented:

“Security is fundamentally about both people and technology, yet the industry has largely built security tools focused solely on the technology element. Everyone knows that when it comes to cybersecurity in workplaces, engaging humans is the biggest opportunity. Amplifier answers the bell with its unique human-in-the-loop solution. We believe they are uniquely positioned to turn this trend into a movement that forward-thinking CISOs will embrace so that they can more efficiently and effectively manage enterprise security.”

Gaurav Manglik, Partner at WestWave Capital said:

“The lack of human engagement in security automation is a missed opportunity to educate people on the why behind the risk of each security finding. Because of today’s hybrid and dynamic workplaces where everyone is moving fast in the spirit of hyperproductivity, this problem has become harder to solve at scale. After assessing the market for many years, Amplifier has done the best execution we’ve seen from a product and team perspective thus far.”

Customers can easily tap into the collective knowledge shared in Slack through guided experiences for AI-powered search, channel recaps, thread summaries, and soon, a digests feature.

These capabilities will enable customers to find answers, distill knowledge, and spark ideas faster.

Why it matters: Nearly half of digital workers struggle to find the information they need to efficiently do their jobs, according to Gartner.

This, paired with an increasing number of tools and ways to exchange ideas, adds to workers’ cognitive load and makes it difficult to catch up quickly and feel on top of the work day.

AI holds enormous potential to make internal knowledge more contextual, relevant, and easier to find and prioritise.

The Slack CEO perspective: 

“For the past decade, Slack has revolutionised the way we work, bringing people, apps, and systems together in one place,” said Denise Dresser, CEO of Slack. “With Slack AI, we’re excited to take this transformation to the next level. These new AI capabilities empower our customers to access the collective knowledge within Slack so they can work smarter, move faster, and spend their time on things that spark real innovation and growth. In the era of generative AI, Slack is the trusted, conversational platform that connects every part of a business to supercharge team productivity.”

Innovation in action:

Starting today, Slack AI’s search and summarisation capabilities can help customers easily find and consume large volumes of information quickly.

These features are trustworthy, easy to use, and require no training.

Users initiate them through guided, contextual interactions, ensuring they don’t have to learn brand new skills to enjoy the benefits.

And each output is secure, cited, and personalised to the user. With Slack AI, customers can access:

• AI-powered search that delivers personalised, intelligent responses to any question: Users can ask a question conversationally and get a concise answer based on relevant Slack messages. Users can find what they need faster, whether they want to learn about a new marketing campaign, get up to speed on company policies, glean insights about past decisions from historical context, or define unfamiliar acronyms.
• Channel recaps that generate key highlights from accessible channels: Users can catch up on unread messages, summarise the last seven days, or set a custom date range to summarise. Users can quickly catch up after time away from work, get up to speed on a new project, or jump in quickly to help resolve time-sensitive issues.
• Thread summaries that catch users up on long conversations: Users can get the gist of a long conversation in one click, and clear sources are included in each summary, allowing users to dive deeper into a highlight. Users can instantly summarise key decisions and next steps from a thread with a lot of back and forth, get up to speed on a customer support ticket, or catch up on a team stand-up to get a bird’s eye view of priorities.

Sales spotlight: 

Sales teams are under pressure to streamline their operations and maximize team effectiveness. With Slack AI, sales reps can”

• Easily identify and bring in the right subject matter expert when a customer has a specific question or concern during a deal cycle.
• Summarise an account channel and get the context they need to prepare for a customer meeting more effectively.
• Generate key takeaways from a long discussion about deal progress to help keep the team on track.

Engineering spotlight:

The incident management process can be time consuming and complex. With Slack AI, engineering teams can:

• Find answers in past incident channels to uncover potential solutions and apply learnings.
• Get the right information they need so they can quickly get situated and jump in to help find a resolution.
• Recap an incident channel and use it as a starting point to draft a root-cause analysis faster.

Slack’s trusted and secure AI experience: 

Trust is the number one value at Salesforce, and Slack is committed to building AI products safely, responsibly, and ethically.

• Slack AI runs on Slack’s infrastructure and upholds the same security practices and compliance standards that customers expect.
• Slack AI’s large language models (LLMs) are hosted directly within Slack, ensuring customer data remains in-house and exclusively for that organisation’s use.
• Customer data remains siloed and will not be used to serve other clients, directly or indirectly.
• Slack AI does not use customer data for LLM training purposes.

The future of native generative AI in Slack:

More features that help users summarise and prioritise information are on the horizon. Soon, Slack AI will create digests summarising key highlights from channels that users want to stay informed on but may not require immediate attention, enabling them to stay up to speed on what they could otherwise miss while focusing on their top priorities.

Additionally, Slack is building a native AI integration with Einstein Copilot, a new conversational AI assistant for Salesforce CRM, that will provide answers to questions directly in Slack that are grounded in trusted customer data.These new search and summarisation features are just the beginning of how Slack will enable people to work smarter and faster. In the future, Slack will be the command center
for work and the conversational interface for generative AI.

Slack’s AI-ready platform:

In addition to these native AI capabilities, partners are bringing additional AI functionality into their Slack apps. Available today, upgraded AI-powered apps from Slack’s partner ecosystem allow users to ask PagerDuty Copilot for help resolving incidents, automatically summarise Notion documents in link previews, and more.

And coming soon, a brand new AI integration with Perplexity will allow users to subscribe to AI-powered insights and pipe them into Slack.