Microsoft Teams for Jira addon - What does the business model look like

[Tillmann Zerfass]

We are currently looking at the possibilities of connecting Microsoft teams and JIRA and found the Microsoft Teams for Jira addon (https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1217836/microsoft-teams-for-jira?hosting=server&tab=support).

In doing so, we ask ourselves the question how such an application can be offered for free. The infrastructure in the background alone has to be operated and financed. What does the business model look like? Is data stored outside of Microsoft and the JIRA environment? If so, where?

[Daniel Eads]

Hi Tillmann, welcome to the Community!

Some initial confusion might be over the vendor listing of the Teams app in the Marketplace. Currently it is listed under SoftServe, one of our solution partners. Microsoft and Atlassian co-developed this particular integration with SoftServe - so the costs are carried by Atlassian. I hope that clarifies a bit about the pricing!

In terms of strategy, we believe that you can do your best work by integrating your tools and switching between them less. We've invested in integrations with Teams, Slack, and VS Code just to name a few. You can learn more about the integrations work we're driving on our integrations site.

Cheers,
Daniel | Atlassian Support

[Tillmann Zerfass]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for clarifying. It helps us understand what the business model is.

when i look at the interplay of both tools, i get the impression that there is another infrastructure component running between the JIRA server and the team instance:

https://jira-server.msteams-atlassian.com/

Who operates this? What exactly happens there? Is the data stored there? And especially in which country is the data stored? A company must be able to answer all these questions before such a tool is put into operation. Are there any documents?

I would be very grateful if you could still answer my questions.

[Simon Hackel]

I too would be interested in the answers since it is not at all clear what is stored and transmitted to this Azure-hosted component and the documentation seems a bit non-professional for an official Atlassian/Microsoft app.

Also strange that it is referred to as "third party" everywhere...

[Hamzah Mohamed]

@Daniel Eads Do you have time to respond to Tillmann's follow-up? We have infosec worries about this too.

[Move Work Forward]

Hi guys,

Nice questions @Tillmann Zerfass 

I can only speculate, but in order for an external system to contact Jira/Confluence Server the App/middleware should have OAuth secrets stored to represent a caller to Jira.

So, as a minimum, that Azure component must store (hopefully encrypted) all secrets to all connected environments, otherwise you cannot connect from outside to Jira/Confluence. The rest of data (like account mapping between Microsoft and Atlassian) can be stored inside or outside.

We are working on our Microsoft Teams Jira Connector and our multiple customers are asking the same questions, so we put down a short page to explain things - https://help.moveworkforward.com/MTJC/Microsoft-Teams-Atlassian-2-way-Connection-Architecture.1657372673.html

We are currently developing the first version of the Microsoft Teams Bot with a possibility to run the middleware component in a multi tenant/single tenant or your infrastructure (AWS/Azure/Docker). If you are interested please let me know.

I am happy to have a video call with you to understand your security, compliance and data residency requirements, please schedule the chat here - https://www.moveworkforward.com/microsoft-teams-atlassian-consultation

Regards,

Leo

CC @Hamzah Mohamed @Simon Hackel 

[John Funk]

Hi Tillmann,

I have no idea what the business model is, but I suspect it is like most products. If you get some integration with other popular or heavily used apps, then more people will be likely to use your app. Otherwise they will use your competitor's app that DOES have that integration. 

So it's worth the investment for both Atlassian and Microsoft to form that partnership. I suspect both apps store data in their respective environments. But if you are already using both, that shouldn't be a problem.