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Am I the only one who sees this as anti-competitive? This is basically collusion - Atlassian agreeing not to compete in chat in return for a payment from Slack.

by slivym 8y ago

Am I the only one who sees this as anti-competitive? This is basically collusion - Atlassian agreeing not to compete in chat in return for a payment from Slack. It almost seems like we're intent on making literally every mistake we made with traditional businesses, but with electronic products.

thebooglebooski 8y ago
I imagine there's some observation bias here, but aren't there other enterprise chat apps out there in the market? Like if my neighbors and coworkers and friends use Slack, I'm not sure if they're a proxy of the entire market. The reason I say that is because there are other apps that do similar things that hail from Microsoft, Google and Facebook. Then the retort goes: well they don't do integrations and aren't as developer focused as Slack and Hipchat. Then, naturally, wouldn't that incentivize those other apps already in the market to build out those features, and do it better?
jedberg 8y ago
"Taking out a competitor is good for Slack, said Butterfield: “There’s fewer choices for people.”"
- ggg9990 8y ago
  Really surprised that a CEO would make a comment like that on the record.
  - booleandilemma 8y ago
    Well it’s not anti-competitive to be competitive...
  - csallen 8y ago
    "There’s fewer choices for people," is such a short quote that I would avoid judging it on its face without seeing the full context.
  - smt88 8y ago
    Slack's competitors include Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. You can say that all of those companies have terrible products if you want (Hangouts, Teams, and FB for Work), but all have been positioned to act as Slack alternatives. I don't think Slack is worried about looking anti-competitive in that crowd.
- genieyclo 8y ago
  "Competition is for losers"..."Always Aim for a Monopoly" -- Peter Thiel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6K8PZxyQfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6K8PZxyQfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUzvo4HwojU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUzvo4HwojU
adamrt 8y ago
It looks more like a product acquisition than collusion. > Slack will pay an undisclosed amount over the next three years to acquire Atlassian’s HipChat and Stride products
- sandyarmstrong 8y ago
  ...which are being immediately shut down.
  - booyaslacka299 8y ago
    Their official post says they are working on a transition path: https://slackhq.com/atlassian-and-slack-partnership https://slackhq.com/atlassian-and-slack-partnership
    - sandyarmstrong 8y ago
      Yes, I should have been more clear. They are immediately deprecated. It doesn't appear that Slack has any real interest in Hipchat/Stride tech (I know I don't).
  - dsnuh 8y ago
    Depending on how you define "immediately". This is from the Atlassian FAQ: The end-of-life dates for each products are below: Stride: February 15th, 2019 Hipchat Cloud: February 15th, 2019 Hipchat Data Center (v3.0): June 22nd, 2019 Hipchat Data Center (v3.1): September 26th, 2019 Hipchat Server (v2.1): December 8th, 2018 Hipchat Server(v2.2): May 30th, 2019 Hipchat Server (v2.4): June 30th, 2020
- slivym 8y ago
  Okay, so given that Atlassian has a clear and direct reason to develop a competitive chat application, presumably they'll embark on producing a new solution and marketing it to their customers as a competitor to slack? I'm not sure I buy it.
nyokodo 8y ago
If by "anti-competitive" you mean all of a sudden there's less competition, then yes it is although that's nothing unique, competing companies merge or make strategic deals all the time. But if you mean "anti-competitive" as in violating anti-trust laws then probably not given the amount of choice that still exists and the apparent lack of monopolistic strong-arm tactics being employed by either side. I'm no lawyer of course. Edit: Original made it sound like I was suggesting the companies were merging, which isn't the case.
kyleperik 8y ago
Despite slack being quite popular and truly a good product, Microsoft still has the upper hand. If you have the "Microsoft Suite" you get everything, access to all their products. Slack is fighting an uphill battle against Microsoft and eliminating Atlassian will help. Dividing those who aren't diehard Microsoft fans won't help. How is anything aside from legal infiltration going to make the playing field any less competitive? If we're all still playing by the same rules, there is still competition.
stale2002 8y ago
It's certainly IS anticompetitive. Anticompetitive practices aren't illegal though. They are only illegal if a company has a monopoly or has significant market power. Now, the question we have to ask is is Slack a near monopoly in it's marketspace? Maybe. I could see the argument go either way.
- ggg9990 8y ago
  Not really, Teams is half as large and growing much faster because it’s glued to the side of Office 365.
  - stale2002 8y ago
    Alas, perhaps I have just spent way too much of my life living in startup land. I've never even heard of people using these Microsoft chat products.
    - ggg9990 8y ago
      The Fortune 500 makes up 73% of American GDP.
csydas 8y ago
I mean this without being tongue in cheek, but Teams itself is anti-competitive. It's a horrible product which is basically only in use because it's bundled into Office 365. Absolutely nothing in Teams is not done better in other products, including Microsoft's own products such as Skype for Business or plain old Skype. Business chats in general are just completely incongruent with what users are expecting from end-user chats like Telegram or WhatsApp or Messages. Even Google has fallen far behind with regards to Hangouts, and Allo is not a good answer either. From a business perspective, I get why businesses choose Teams or Allo, but the actual products have usability as an incidental feature. With both major players, the chats are just there to ensure that Slack cannot/will not grow, same with other programs such as Discord. It's a revenue stream that is yet untapped, and soon Microsoft and Google will come calling for their payment from Businesses.
- codenesium 8y ago
  What about it is horrible? My team loves it.
  - addicted 8y ago
    Agreed. Teams works really well for us as well.
  - joenathanone 8y ago
    Seconded, me and my team love it.
  - turc1656 8y ago
    Same here. We just started using it and everyone really likes it so far. Much better than Skype. I've tried Slack and didn't really care for it. I realize MSFT is mimicking the Slack style in Teams, but I just didn't really actually want to use Slack. But Teams seems like something I want to use.
  - castlecrasher2 8y ago
    I have a few reasons to list: 1) It constantly minimizes for seemingly no reason (at least once a week). 2) The "Teams" and "Chat" menus are separate. They're in the same window in Slack, and that just makes sense. 2.1) The "Teams" menu won't list more than 4 channels per Team by default. If you want to open a channel there you have to open the menu or favorite everything. I know this can be fixed by good sanitation by Team admins but Slack's way of doing it encourages it automatically. 3) Can't invite outside users like you can with Slack. 4) The chat history is so short it has to load after maybe 10 lines when scrolling up. 5) The "thumbs up"/message menu covers the message when hovering over it so it's impossible to highlight a message to copy/paste starting from the right to the left. You can go the other way but I never have until Teams. 6) Updates take forever to release! I've googled issues that MS staff note as "on the docket" for adding but months later it's still not added. 7) I frequently don't see the toast/popup notifications for some reason. I don't know what's going on there and it could be me but I don't remember it happening when I used Slack at work. 8) When it updates it shuts down without notification. 9) This might be the Android "work profile" in play but if I get a call or sometimes even a message the Android notification will not go away until I restart my phone. I mean, Slack isn't perfect but I didn't have any complaints about it except that the call functionality would disconnect randomly.
Spooky23 8y ago
Slack going out of business is also anti-competitive. There is probably something like a half billion Teams users now.
anonytrary 8y ago
Right, because everyone knows the second law of business is that the number of competitors in a market can never decrease over time. Jokes aside, how is this anti-competitive other than trivially reducing the number of total competitors? If 4th place wants to give up in the race, should all of their work be in vain? AFAIK a product like Slack doesn't require tons of up-front legislation preventing new entrants in the race. Competition in this domain is very much alive, regardless of what a few big kahunas decide to do.
slinkyavenger 8y ago
Using collusion without knowing what it means... Businesses make business deals all the time. If I had a company that made an inferior product and wasn't able or willing to invest time and resources to improve it, you know sure as hell I'd look to sell that product IP off before my competitors take all of my marketshare anyway and my company gets nothing for years of pre-existing work. That's a sensible business move that lets them allocate resources to their strengths. To believe it's some kind of secret or illegal deal is pretty naïve. It's obviously not a mistake either - Hipchat is technologically behind other products on the market, and Atlassian has other core products that are doing really well (JIRA, for example).

by slivym 8y ago

thebooglebooski 8y ago

I imagine there's some observation bias here, but aren't there other enterprise chat apps out there in the market? Like if my neighbors and coworkers and friends use Slack, I'm not sure if they're a proxy of the entire market. The reason I say that is because there are other apps that do similar things that hail from Microsoft, Google and Facebook. Then the retort goes: well they don't do integrations and aren't as developer focused as Slack and Hipchat. Then, naturally, wouldn't that incentivize those other apps already in the market to build out those features, and do it better?

jedberg 8y ago

"Taking out a competitor is good for Slack, said Butterfield: “There’s fewer choices for people.”"

ggg9990 8y ago
Really surprised that a CEO would make a comment like that on the record.
- booleandilemma 8y ago
  Well it’s not anti-competitive to be competitive...
- csallen 8y ago
  "There’s fewer choices for people," is such a short quote that I would avoid judging it on its face without seeing the full context.
- smt88 8y ago
  Slack's competitors include Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. You can say that all of those companies have terrible products if you want (Hangouts, Teams, and FB for Work), but all have been positioned to act as Slack alternatives. I don't think Slack is worried about looking anti-competitive in that crowd.
genieyclo 8y ago
"Competition is for losers"..."Always Aim for a Monopoly" -- Peter Thiel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6K8PZxyQfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6K8PZxyQfU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUzvo4HwojU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUzvo4HwojU

adamrt 8y ago

It looks more like a product acquisition than collusion. > Slack will pay an undisclosed amount over the next three years to acquire Atlassian’s HipChat and Stride products

sandyarmstrong 8y ago
...which are being immediately shut down.
- booyaslacka299 8y ago
  Their official post says they are working on a transition path: https://slackhq.com/atlassian-and-slack-partnership https://slackhq.com/atlassian-and-slack-partnership
  - sandyarmstrong 8y ago
    Yes, I should have been more clear. They are immediately deprecated. It doesn't appear that Slack has any real interest in Hipchat/Stride tech (I know I don't).
- dsnuh 8y ago
  Depending on how you define "immediately". This is from the Atlassian FAQ: The end-of-life dates for each products are below: Stride: February 15th, 2019 Hipchat Cloud: February 15th, 2019 Hipchat Data Center (v3.0): June 22nd, 2019 Hipchat Data Center (v3.1): September 26th, 2019 Hipchat Server (v2.1): December 8th, 2018 Hipchat Server(v2.2): May 30th, 2019 Hipchat Server (v2.4): June 30th, 2020
slivym 8y ago
Okay, so given that Atlassian has a clear and direct reason to develop a competitive chat application, presumably they'll embark on producing a new solution and marketing it to their customers as a competitor to slack? I'm not sure I buy it.

nyokodo 8y ago

If by "anti-competitive" you mean all of a sudden there's less competition, then yes it is although that's nothing unique, competing companies merge or make strategic deals all the time. But if you mean "anti-competitive" as in violating anti-trust laws then probably not given the amount of choice that still exists and the apparent lack of monopolistic strong-arm tactics being employed by either side. I'm no lawyer of course. Edit: Original made it sound like I was suggesting the companies were merging, which isn't the case.

kyleperik 8y ago

Despite slack being quite popular and truly a good product, Microsoft still has the upper hand. If you have the "Microsoft Suite" you get everything, access to all their products. Slack is fighting an uphill battle against Microsoft and eliminating Atlassian will help. Dividing those who aren't diehard Microsoft fans won't help. How is anything aside from legal infiltration going to make the playing field any less competitive? If we're all still playing by the same rules, there is still competition.

stale2002 8y ago

It's certainly IS anticompetitive. Anticompetitive practices aren't illegal though. They are only illegal if a company has a monopoly or has significant market power. Now, the question we have to ask is is Slack a near monopoly in it's marketspace? Maybe. I could see the argument go either way.

ggg9990 8y ago
Not really, Teams is half as large and growing much faster because it’s glued to the side of Office 365.
- stale2002 8y ago
  Alas, perhaps I have just spent way too much of my life living in startup land. I've never even heard of people using these Microsoft chat products.
  - ggg9990 8y ago
    The Fortune 500 makes up 73% of American GDP.

csydas 8y ago

I mean this without being tongue in cheek, but Teams itself is anti-competitive. It's a horrible product which is basically only in use because it's bundled into Office 365. Absolutely nothing in Teams is not done better in other products, including Microsoft's own products such as Skype for Business or plain old Skype. Business chats in general are just completely incongruent with what users are expecting from end-user chats like Telegram or WhatsApp or Messages. Even Google has fallen far behind with regards to Hangouts, and Allo is not a good answer either. From a business perspective, I get why businesses choose Teams or Allo, but the actual products have usability as an incidental feature. With both major players, the chats are just there to ensure that Slack cannot/will not grow, same with other programs such as Discord. It's a revenue stream that is yet untapped, and soon Microsoft and Google will come calling for their payment from Businesses.

codenesium 8y ago
What about it is horrible? My team loves it.
- addicted 8y ago
  Agreed. Teams works really well for us as well.
- joenathanone 8y ago
  Seconded, me and my team love it.
- turc1656 8y ago
  Same here. We just started using it and everyone really likes it so far. Much better than Skype. I've tried Slack and didn't really care for it. I realize MSFT is mimicking the Slack style in Teams, but I just didn't really actually want to use Slack. But Teams seems like something I want to use.
- castlecrasher2 8y ago
  I have a few reasons to list: 1) It constantly minimizes for seemingly no reason (at least once a week). 2) The "Teams" and "Chat" menus are separate. They're in the same window in Slack, and that just makes sense. 2.1) The "Teams" menu won't list more than 4 channels per Team by default. If you want to open a channel there you have to open the menu or favorite everything. I know this can be fixed by good sanitation by Team admins but Slack's way of doing it encourages it automatically. 3) Can't invite outside users like you can with Slack. 4) The chat history is so short it has to load after maybe 10 lines when scrolling up. 5) The "thumbs up"/message menu covers the message when hovering over it so it's impossible to highlight a message to copy/paste starting from the right to the left. You can go the other way but I never have until Teams. 6) Updates take forever to release! I've googled issues that MS staff note as "on the docket" for adding but months later it's still not added. 7) I frequently don't see the toast/popup notifications for some reason. I don't know what's going on there and it could be me but I don't remember it happening when I used Slack at work. 8) When it updates it shuts down without notification. 9) This might be the Android "work profile" in play but if I get a call or sometimes even a message the Android notification will not go away until I restart my phone. I mean, Slack isn't perfect but I didn't have any complaints about it except that the call functionality would disconnect randomly.

Spooky23 8y ago

Slack going out of business is also anti-competitive. There is probably something like a half billion Teams users now.

anonytrary 8y ago

Right, because everyone knows the second law of business is that the number of competitors in a market can never decrease over time. Jokes aside, how is this anti-competitive other than trivially reducing the number of total competitors? If 4th place wants to give up in the race, should all of their work be in vain? AFAIK a product like Slack doesn't require tons of up-front legislation preventing new entrants in the race. Competition in this domain is very much alive, regardless of what a few big kahunas decide to do.

slinkyavenger 8y ago

Using collusion without knowing what it means... Businesses make business deals all the time. If I had a company that made an inferior product and wasn't able or willing to invest time and resources to improve it, you know sure as hell I'd look to sell that product IP off before my competitors take all of my marketshare anyway and my company gets nothing for years of pre-existing work. That's a sensible business move that lets them allocate resources to their strengths. To believe it's some kind of secret or illegal deal is pretty naïve. It's obviously not a mistake either - Hipchat is technologically behind other products on the market, and Atlassian has other core products that are doing really well (JIRA, for example).