Facebook launches partner programme as it dips into channel

Social network giant plans to use channel to roll out Workplace by Facebook

Facebook has a launched a global partner programme for its Workplace service.

Workplace is an internal social network for enterprises, originally used only by Facebook itself, that was rolled out to a limited number of customers a year.

Originally known as Facebook for Work, the Silicon Valley giant has now rebranded the service and is making it available for enterprises globally.

Workplace is free for three months and then charged per person in an organisation using the service, ranging between $1-$3 depending on the size of the company.

Facebook says that currently the top five countries using Workplace are India, the US, Norway, the UK and France.

SADA Systems, a Microsoft and Google Cloud Premier partner and one of the service providers on the 13-strong programme, said it will offer services around policy, administration, configuration and training.

"Helping customers implement Workplace is an exciting opportunity to enable better collaboration, using a social platform that is familiar to everyone," said SADA CEO Tony Safoian.

"We plan to help customers implement this new service without organisational headaches and maximum productivity through user-adoption programmes, bringing about transformational value for their teams."

There has been speculation that Workplace will be Facebook's weapon as it looks to take on the likes of Slack and Microsoft's Yammer in enterprises, but Mitchell Feldman, CEO at Microsoft partner RedPixie, said Facebook needs to change the perception it has in the workplace before it can do this, while also questioning whether it makes sense for an enterprise to bring in an extra product.

"Facebook has this rep as being a consumer-based productivity killer and they have to remove those shackles before they are to start to make an imprint in the commercial market," he said.

"The whole beauty of Yammer is that it's all integrated into the ecosystem of the Office 365 world, so to have something that is siloed out of it doesn't make sense because you want one ecosystem for every product that you use."