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> There are dozens of cloud-based tools aimed at business users. Can all these apps coexist? > It's a mess. You have all these new tools like Slack, but they'r

by pdog 9y ago

> There are dozens of cloud-based tools aimed at business users. Can all these apps coexist? > It's a mess. You have all these new tools like Slack, but they're totally disconnected from the old ones, so people are constantly toggling back and forth. This fragmented experience wastes a lot of time, and it makes it really hard to focus. The proliferation and fragmentation of SaaS apps is a huge problem for businesses. When Drew Houston says it's a mess, you know there's a massive startup idea here.

jpalomaki 9y ago
It's a mess and also gets fairly expensive quickly when you put $10-20/month/user to several services. One way forward is consolidated services like Bitrix. They may not be as good as Slack, Dropbox, Asana etc for some specific tasks, but may provide more integrated service with smaller price tag. Another option would be for "best of breed" companies to team up to offer package deals.
- jszymborski 9y ago
  > Another option would be for "best of breed" companies to team up to offer package deals. That's a great idea, and I can't imagine why I haven't seen it in a meaningful way. I'd be very much on board to buy a "web office" bundle with Dropbox/Slack/Github/Trello or something like that if it meant upwards of a 15% discount. It's obviously easier to make a personal budget for one re-occuring SaaS bill than 6 $5-10/mo SaaS bills. Another obvious advantage is that a lot of these little folk have common enemies with MS/Google/Amazon, and this is a great way for them to achieve similar lock-in with almost zero investment. Finally, Dropbox/Slack/GitHub/etc... all have awesome integrations that either already exist in each-others products or are super easy to implement. I have a vague feeling there was a lesson about this in In Search of Stupidity [0], but I can't be sure. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1191767.In_Search_of_Stupidity https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1191767.In_Search_of_Stu...
btown 9y ago
> a massive startup idea https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ is evolving!
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
  I think the idea was to make an interface that lets all these products interchangeable and integrated.
deleted 9y ago
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by pdog 9y ago

jpalomaki 9y ago

It's a mess and also gets fairly expensive quickly when you put $10-20/month/user to several services. One way forward is consolidated services like Bitrix. They may not be as good as Slack, Dropbox, Asana etc for some specific tasks, but may provide more integrated service with smaller price tag. Another option would be for "best of breed" companies to team up to offer package deals.

jszymborski 9y ago
> Another option would be for "best of breed" companies to team up to offer package deals. That's a great idea, and I can't imagine why I haven't seen it in a meaningful way. I'd be very much on board to buy a "web office" bundle with Dropbox/Slack/Github/Trello or something like that if it meant upwards of a 15% discount. It's obviously easier to make a personal budget for one re-occuring SaaS bill than 6 $5-10/mo SaaS bills. Another obvious advantage is that a lot of these little folk have common enemies with MS/Google/Amazon, and this is a great way for them to achieve similar lock-in with almost zero investment. Finally, Dropbox/Slack/GitHub/etc... all have awesome integrations that either already exist in each-others products or are super easy to implement. I have a vague feeling there was a lesson about this in In Search of Stupidity [0], but I can't be sure. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1191767.In_Search_of_Stupidity https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1191767.In_Search_of_Stu...

btown 9y ago

> a massive startup idea https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/ is evolving!

SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
I think the idea was to make an interface that lets all these products interchangeable and integrated.

deleted 9y ago

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