4 ms·

What the hell is going on with groupware? IBM, MS, Google, are they all just befuddled by whatever web fad is current to forget making their stuff actually usef

What the hell is going on with groupware? IBM, MS, Google, are they all just befuddled by whatever web fad is current to forget making their stuff actually useful? I feel like there has been nothing but regression since 10 years, ever since Skype brought free and stable group calls.

ChuckMcM 9y ago
I suspect that nobody has figured out how to make money on it and that is what is 'going on'. It does make one ponder how to do this stuff in a sustainable way.
- dvanduzer 9y ago
  Seems like Slack figured out how to make a lot of money out of interoperable groupware. If they'd been slower at it, I'd still be saying they're an acquisition target for those companies. edit: "All" they did was come along at the right time and make the interoperability easy. The prerequisites to have done it at all? Smartphones, WebRTC, and ElasticSearch.
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Calling Slack "interoperable" is a bit much to me, though I admit it's better than everyone else in the "new crowd". I wonder if we need a new word for "interoperability in the time of SaaS" - the kind of where SaaSes talk to other SaaSes via locked down APIs, under absolute control of the vendor.
    - dvanduzer 9y ago
      I mean, you can call the APIs locked down if you insist, but SaaS is SaaS. Would you count S3 as a locked down API, for example? OpenStack's Swift (and plenty of other products) will emulate it. I chose the term "interoperable" specifically instead of "API compatible" but I agree this gets very confusing when talking about SaaS. In order to do what Slack is doing, they have to be somewhat committed to open standards. They are just doing webhooks, like GitHub does. We tried specifying microformats, and we tried specifying webhooks, but the "loose RPC" model... Seems to work way better than XMPP server interoperability ever has. I recommend this recent nested Twitter ("new crowd") thread amongst Stewart Butterfield and many other early web folk, about whether Slack is a web app: https://twitter.com/stewart/status/961704310613491712 https://twitter.com/stewart/status/961704310613491712
- Spooky23 9y ago
  I don’t think so. Cisco maybe, but Microsoft is printing money with this tech. Capturing email, files and love communication drives subscription revenue for E5 SKUs of 365, plus most companies will need Azure AD to meet their security and compliance requirements. We ran the numbers at work... taking the blue pill and going all on Microsoft will 3x our lifetime value to them vs a standard E3 shop.
Spooky23 9y ago
It’s funny you said that. One of my colleagues pointed out that the IM client from Exchange 2003 era (I think it was Live Communications Server) and LiveMeeting were a better collaboration platform than SfB, even given the severe limitations on bandwidth and cpu.
- m_mueller 9y ago
  It's really not a high bar is it? Frickin MSN Messenger and Adium was a better platform than what we have now. While never having used it I suspect the best was probably blackberry's platform in its heyday, even though AFAIK complicated to integrate into a business, but at least then it would work solidly.

ChuckMcM 9y ago

I suspect that nobody has figured out how to make money on it and that is what is 'going on'. It does make one ponder how to do this stuff in a sustainable way.

dvanduzer 9y ago
Seems like Slack figured out how to make a lot of money out of interoperable groupware. If they'd been slower at it, I'd still be saying they're an acquisition target for those companies. edit: "All" they did was come along at the right time and make the interoperability easy. The prerequisites to have done it at all? Smartphones, WebRTC, and ElasticSearch.
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Calling Slack "interoperable" is a bit much to me, though I admit it's better than everyone else in the "new crowd". I wonder if we need a new word for "interoperability in the time of SaaS" - the kind of where SaaSes talk to other SaaSes via locked down APIs, under absolute control of the vendor.
  - dvanduzer 9y ago
    I mean, you can call the APIs locked down if you insist, but SaaS is SaaS. Would you count S3 as a locked down API, for example? OpenStack's Swift (and plenty of other products) will emulate it. I chose the term "interoperable" specifically instead of "API compatible" but I agree this gets very confusing when talking about SaaS. In order to do what Slack is doing, they have to be somewhat committed to open standards. They are just doing webhooks, like GitHub does. We tried specifying microformats, and we tried specifying webhooks, but the "loose RPC" model... Seems to work way better than XMPP server interoperability ever has. I recommend this recent nested Twitter ("new crowd") thread amongst Stewart Butterfield and many other early web folk, about whether Slack is a web app: https://twitter.com/stewart/status/961704310613491712 https://twitter.com/stewart/status/961704310613491712
Spooky23 9y ago
I don’t think so. Cisco maybe, but Microsoft is printing money with this tech. Capturing email, files and love communication drives subscription revenue for E5 SKUs of 365, plus most companies will need Azure AD to meet their security and compliance requirements. We ran the numbers at work... taking the blue pill and going all on Microsoft will 3x our lifetime value to them vs a standard E3 shop.

Spooky23 9y ago

It’s funny you said that. One of my colleagues pointed out that the IM client from Exchange 2003 era (I think it was Live Communications Server) and LiveMeeting were a better collaboration platform than SfB, even given the severe limitations on bandwidth and cpu.

m_mueller 9y ago
It's really not a high bar is it? Frickin MSN Messenger and Adium was a better platform than what we have now. While never having used it I suspect the best was probably blackberry's platform in its heyday, even though AFAIK complicated to integrate into a business, but at least then it would work solidly.