Chinese social e-commerce company Pinduoduo has unveiled an enterprise communication app called Knock on Monday, stepping into the booming workplace collaboration market, local media outlet Caijingtuya reported.
Knock provides basic functions including instant messages, to-do lists, contacts management, voice call, and audio conferencing. However, it lacks other popular features such as video conferencing, file transfer, and task approval.
Knock is currently available on iOS and Android stores, and users can register on the app with a phone number, either as an individual user or as a member of an organization. Individual users have to create or join an organization before they can have full access to all of Knock’s features.
The first version of Knock was launched on January 26 for internal testing. However, the app has been used for Pinduoduo’s internal communication since the fourth quarter of 2019, a Pinduoduo employee told Caijingtuya.
Since the end of the Chinese New Year holiday, more than 18 million companies have asked their employees to work from home due to the coronavirus outbreak. The number of telecommuters in China has exceeded 300 million, according to market research firm iiMedia.
Pinduoduo is a latecomer in the enterprise collaboration service market, as major players in China’s internet economy take steps to enhance their platforms due to the rising demand.
Alibaba’s DingTalk, Tencent’s WeChat Work, Huawei’s WeLink, and ByteDance’s Lark have all opened their remote working services to the public free of charge from late January. Baidu has also introduced Baidu Hi to the public on February 12, while Sohu launched a beta version of a new office app called Little E during the same month.
