Microsoft will retire team collaboration platform GigJam in September 2017

Microsoft announced it will retire GigJam on September 22, 2017. 

Currently in public preview, GigJam is a collaborative platform for designing ad hoc, cross-device, team-focused applications that tie together data and processes from other business systems. It was revealed in the summer of 2015 and quickly created a buzz due to its unique combination of capabilities and slick demonstrations that allowed for things like on-the-fly access control, simple mapping of data types, and collaborative tools.

Microsoft wrote in this week's announcement that the company has learned from the experience:

"GigJam introduced a new way to spontaneously create unstructured workflows and the Preview delivered learnings and insights that will inform future product experiences."

The original vision for GigJam set lofty goals for transforming the way workers would interact. The team wrote in 2015:

"GigJam is designed for the emerging workforce that is more connected, more available and more social than ever before.  With GigJam, a business can expect a dramatic transformation of every process where humans have the potential to exercise discretion and work with others, colleagues as well as customers." 

The platform entered public preview in June 2016 and has remained there since. That step brought with it support for multiple device platforms and several pre-built integrations to popular SaaS products like Dynamics 365/CRM, Salesforce, DropBox, OneDrive, and Box.

The public preview also revealed some of the ...