Microsoft is throwing in the towel on its GigJam collaboration service, after its public debut two years ago.

Microsoft will end the GigJam preview program on September 22, 2017, officials announced today, August 22.

GigJam was a cloud service plus associated light-weight apps designed to help “get work done.” Microsoft officials called the hard-to-describe offering as a “new way to spontaneously create unstructured workflows,” known as “gigs.”

During the preview program, gigs had a default lifespan of seven days; as of September 22, any remaining gigs will expire automatically, Microsoft officials said.

In 2015, when GigJam was highlighted during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference to considerable interest, officials said the service already had been years in the making inside the CEO’s Chief Technology Office. Last Summer, Microsoft expanded the GigJam preview, opening it up publicly to users across a variety of devices.

GigJam was designed to break down tasks into a set of discrete steps and sets of information. Those involved in a particular task couldconverse (online or offline), get information from their internal business and/or software-as-a-service apps and keep track of the processes involved — all in the name of accomplishing tasks more quickly and securely.

According to a TechNet blog post announcing plans to terminate GigJam, officials said: “The (GigJam) Preview delivered learnings and insights that will inform future product experiences.”

Currently, there isn’t a single Microsoft product or service that replicates what GigJam was attempting to do. But Microsoft is continuing to look for new ways to improve the way business users collaborate with services like its Flow event-automation service and its Microsoft Graph application programming interface.

Microsoft’s recently introduced Coco Framework for enterprise blockchain users also is looking to improve the way business partners collaborate and share information.

Previous and Related Coverage

Microsoft broadens preview availability of its GigJam collaboration service

Where did Microsoft’s new Flow event-automation service come from?

Microsoft debuts Coco Framework to improve blockchain performance, privacy