facebook once had grand ambitions to be a major player in business communication and productivity, but today Meta, the social network's parent company, will close a very significant chapter in that history. TechCrunch has learned that Meta is shutting down Workplace, a version of facebook that was created to enable communication between business teams and broader organizations.
We've reached out to the company for comment, but our sources tell us the company plans to make an official announcement later today. Sources say the platform will operate as usual until September 2025. Then it will be read-only until May 2026. Then the service will be completely taken offline.
According to a memo to Workplace customers, the company recommends Zoom-owned Workvivo as a migration-ready alternative. Workvivo, another business communication platform, was acquired by Zoom in 2023. We have the full Meta memo below.
It is not yet clear how many employees will be affected by the closure.
The move marks the end of a ten-year run for the product, which had big plans to bring a differentiated revenue stream to facebook but ultimately found it too difficult to compete against the likes of Slack and later Microsoft's Teams.
The split has been strategically up in the air for a while, so this shouldn't come as a huge surprise. We had even heard that, in the wake of Covid, Meta was approached by external investment firms to convert the division into an independent company that would then get external investment.
Meta declined, one source said, mainly because facebook (and now Meta) saw Workplace as a “strategic asset.” That wasn't because Workplace generated sales close to the billions Meta makes from advertising on platforms like facebook and instagram, but because it was important to present a more diverse face to the market. And it helped Meta make the case for its various offerings to other stakeholders, showing regulators that it was more than just an overly powerful social network and showing organizations that facebook could do more for them than just sell ads.
“It helps make facebook (and Meta) look like adults,” the source said.
Clearly, the company's priorities are shifting to focus on ai and that could mean other reorganizations beyond this over time.
Workplace was originally built on how facebook itself used its flagship social network. It was already running a more closed version of facebook for its own internal teams, and the company saw an opportunity to develop it as a product aimed at business users.
Its working title was facebook @ Work and it was developed by a team based in London and headed by Lars Rasmussen, a co-creator of Google Maps who was hired by facebook and worked as the company's head of engineering. (He had long wanted to create a business service on facebook, and this was his baby.)
Eventually, the product came out of beta as Workplace and proceeded to develop a series of third-party integrations when facebook saw an opportunity to create more productivity hooks for users around the core purpose of communication.
Over time, Workplace managed to acquire some very important customers, but eventually there was an unexpected curve in the road. Slack was a viral hit and was finding great traction, which in turn fueled the creation of Microsoft's Teams. Initially, Workplace set out to defend itself against these, but eventually gave ground and associated with Teams for certain functionalities.
Over time, several key employees building Workplace left, and one source tells us the product never really recovered post-Covid.
“Growth slowed” after the pandemic, the source said, and with the company in something of an identity crisis these days (after all, it's not even called facebook anymore, and it's not even clear if Meta has much of it either). meaning), “it slowed down.” He also shows that he is being more decisive by eliminating all side projects.”
Here is the company's memo to clients:
Dear Workplace Administrator:
Today we share that we made the difficult decision to close Meta's Workplace in 2026.
We understand that this decision will be detrimental to the businesses, organizations, and partners who depend on Workplace every day. Our priority is to make the transition as seamless as possible.
Time lines
Our current plans allow you to continue using Workplace as usual until August 31, 2025. Our account management and customer service teams will remain available to answer any questions or concerns you may have during this time. Additionally, Meta will discount Workplace by 50% starting September 1, 2024.
From September 1, 2025 to May 31, 2026, Workplace will be free and can only be accessed to read and download existing data, after which access will be terminated and your Workplace instance will be deleted.
Download your information
To download your data, you can activate the Download Your Information tool so that your users can download their data directly from Workplace settings. If you want to export information from your Workplace, you can use the Workplace API.
While we appreciate that you may already have an existing technology partner, Workvivo by Zoom is Meta's only preferred migration partner, and we will work with Zoom to provide additional tools and services to facilitate a better transition for Workplace customers to the Workvivo product. from Zoom.
