4 ms·

Whether or not Slack has the better product or not, Microsoft will blow past them in terms of paying customers. Slack has 1.25 million paying customers as of no

Whether or not Slack has the better product or not, Microsoft will blow past them in terms of paying customers. Slack has 1.25 million paying customers as of now. Microsoft announced it signed a 400,000-employee comppany on launch day. They can easily sign Coca Cola, Macy's, McDonalds and Unilever in a matter of months, which could bring them at most 10 million paying customers. Microsoft has the power of existing customers to connect to. This is very much the Snapchat vs. Instagram Stories situation but for team communication.

brazzledazzle 10y ago
The point might be moot but there is a difference between enterprise licenses and active users. In some big multinational business a subscription with a service like Office 365 signed and paid for at the parent corp level often means dick. Services like this are sometimes a negotiable value add so it may not even be on the radar in terms of implementation for the parent corp. Even when it is many child companies/divisions have a lot of latitude to choose how they collaborate because the bureaucratic corp IT groups are often unaligned with the child companies and focus on cost cutting. Ultimately they are inherently focused on providing a least common denominator solution which often ends up sucking equally for everyone. To put it another way, look at something like SharePoint. Microsoft will happily tell you it has a ton of users. They might tell you that it's quite profitable. But SharePoint is a just a terrible piece of shit that everyone hates but IT departments drag everyone to it kicking and screaming. So subscriptions will get purchased, contracts signed. Microsoft will make money. But will they take mindshare? Maybe Slack won't be able to differentiate enough. Time will tell but today employees actually want Slack.

4 ms·

Whether or not Slack has the better product or not, Microsoft will blow past them in terms of paying customers. Slack has 1.25 million paying customers as of no

by slackoverflower 10y ago

brazzledazzle 10y ago
The point might be moot but there is a difference between enterprise licenses and active users. In some big multinational business a subscription with a service like Office 365 signed and paid for at the parent corp level often means dick. Services like this are sometimes a negotiable value add so it may not even be on the radar in terms of implementation for the parent corp. Even when it is many child companies/divisions have a lot of latitude to choose how they collaborate because the bureaucratic corp IT groups are often unaligned with the child companies and focus on cost cutting. Ultimately they are inherently focused on providing a least common denominator solution which often ends up sucking equally for everyone. To put it another way, look at something like SharePoint. Microsoft will happily tell you it has a ton of users. They might tell you that it's quite profitable. But SharePoint is a just a terrible piece of shit that everyone hates but IT departments drag everyone to it kicking and screaming. So subscriptions will get purchased, contracts signed. Microsoft will make money. But will they take mindshare? Maybe Slack won't be able to differentiate enough. Time will tell but today employees actually want Slack.