There are so many Slack-like chat apps these days.

There's Facebook's Workplace and Microsoft's Teams and so on. But that isn't stopping Atlassian, which makes the HipChat chat app, from introducing Stride, another chat app. But this one has a slightly different purpose. Sometimes teams use so many collaboration and communication tools, like Slack, that it's easy to become distracted and get no work done, which kind of defeats the purpose of these apps.

That's where Stride comes in, offering chat services as well as video conferencing and a muting option called Focus Mode. That last bit is key. You can use it to let people know you need space to get work done, and when you return, you'll get a recap of notifications and items missed. There's also a feature that lets you mark messages as actions or decisions so you can turn conversations into work assignments.

And with the Meetings feature, which is free at any subscription tier, you can easily move from a chat conversation to a video or voice call. The app isn't out yet; you can sign up now to request early access.