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It's still crazy to me that a $16B company can't make the financials of a true native app for Windows and macOS work. Microsoft has some real soul searching to

It's still crazy to me that a $16B company can't make the financials of a true native app for Windows and macOS work. Microsoft has some real soul searching to do to fix up Windows development and make it easier and more attractive to companies. Thankfully it seems like both Microsoft and Apple are at least trying to make things easier. Apple will probably do the best with Project Catalyst (I mean, they already got Twitter!), but Microsoft is investing in React Native for Windows which could prove really interesting. Hopefully Microsoft doesn't settle for just making Electron better.

kareemm 7y ago
Maybe the lesson is that a decent solution to a painful problem and great sales and marketing are a good recipe for success.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  It is a recipe for market share. Profitability and a realistic valuation is yet to be seen.
  - nwienert 7y ago
    But I don't see anyone claiming a native app is the difference to profitability.
    - omeid2 7y ago
      I don't think they do, most "office worker" computer resources are way over provisioned, at least in the developed countries. Does resource consumption matters to me? yes, but that is because I compile stuff, run VMs, do simulations, like many other developers. My grandma or dad at his office? they could do just fine with 1/10th of their resources. This is not an argument for wastefulness, but the reality of business world and the value of computing resources.
  - FartyMcFarter 7y ago
    If the owners get rich by cashing out on an IPO, that sounds like a "recipe for success" to me.
scarface74 7y ago
Slack is a $16 billion dollar company on paper but still not profitable and showing no signs of profitability. It’s not like Slack is printing money.
- robodale 7y ago
  They will be if they inject ads in between your messages (free version only). "Rid Belly Fat NOW! Click Here!"
  - jay_kyburz 7y ago
    Haha, and that will be the last slack message I ever read.
marcrosoft 7y ago
Maybe because the real future is web apps and has been for more than a decade now.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  In the same way Linux is perpetually the future of desktop?
  - carlosdp 7y ago
    Not really comparable, the web already has massive adoption, just needs to get better at high-performance client apps. And with WebAssembly + PWAs, and WebGPU in development, it's getting very close.
    - bigiain 7y ago
      "Linux already has massive adoption in the server and embedded spaces, just needs to get better at office-related client apps"... 2019, celebrating the eleventh consecutive "This is the Year of Linux on the desktop"...
- cududa 7y ago
  If it’s been the future for a decade, and that future isn’t here ... is it really the future of applications?
  - narag 7y ago
    I would replace "the future" with saying that it's much more profitable for vendors and less convenient for users, so it's being adopted as fast as vendors can overcome users's resistance.
    - marcrosoft 7y ago
      It is actually much more convenient for users. They can switch computers/phone/OSes and have the same experience. The same is not true with native apps.
carlosdp 7y ago
I think the pure-web play will end up being a better decision in the long run tbh.
- dstaley 7y ago
  I think from an app developer's perspective, web-based apps are definitely the way to go. That's because it's so incredibly difficult to build a good web, Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android app. I'm hopeful that one day making good native apps will be as easy and accessible as web development.
  - dmitriid 7y ago
    It’s significantly easier to build a good native app than a good web app. However, it’s significantly harder to build several native apps for each OS/platform with the same level of polish and functionality than a single web app that will work on all of them.
narag 7y ago
Do Microsoft and Apple really want native apps? I've got the opposite impression: they've tried very hard to herd desktop apps into Apple Store model. Third party vendors, like Adobe, are also forcing clients to adopt subscription schemes.
- lawnchair_larry 7y ago
  Those are still native apps. I believe parent is comparing to bloated Electron crap that requires an entire Chromium instance to put a GUI on what is basically IRC and text editors.
- dstaley 7y ago
  What does a subscription have to do with native apps though? All of Adobe's apps are native apps even though they require a subscription license.
  - narag 7y ago
    Sorry I wasn't clear. The underlying problem is piracy. Big players like Adobe can still use the subscription model. For most vendors, the easiest choice is going the web route. Deployment is another PITA that makes App Store model desirable for the vendors. For Apple and Microsoft it's even better because they get a cut, they curate their platforms and have the upper hand over vendors lest they become competition.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      I doubt that Slack would ever offer subscriptions through the App Store.
      - narag 7y ago
        With $16B valuation they can afford not to, of course.
reitzensteinm 7y ago
I don't even think they need to make a native app; I use plenty of Electron apps day to day, like VSCode, Atom, GitHub Desktop and they're all fine. Slack however is borderline unusable. Ghost processes, background workspaces silently closing and not delivering notifications, processes pinned at 100% CPU, silent crashes, pauses while typing, and even sometimes character drops. I've tried it on three laptops from two vendors all with 16gb of memory, 100% SSD and an i7. I've got Mac user friends that tell me they've never had any of the above issues, and I believe them. I've used it on a Mac, though not as a daily driver, and it's fine. It just feels to me like Windows is a second tier platform for Slack, where they're fixing the bare minimum to not lose market share.
- jay_kyburz 7y ago
  I'm a Windows user and I never have any of those problems. Our organisation is only about 10 people so I guess we are not pushing it very hard.
- hindsightbias 7y ago
  When my late model macbook pro fan starts running, it’s always slack. And thats several times a week. At least it’s not another Box spinning beachball.
jillesvangurp 7y ago
The pain of forking development into multiple separate teams with completely different technology stacks, bugs, and coordination overhead is just not worth it for most startups. It slows you down when you need to be able to adapt quickly. A lot of unicorns in the past would have addressed this by simply focusing on one platform initially but for an application like this that is not feasible. Even Linux support is not optional for a company like Slack since a lot of the decision makers on stuff like this tend to be in the IT department which in many companies would include at least a few Linux users. By going all in on Electron, they ensured access to all relevant platforms from day one. The reality is, that most of their user base is completely fine with performance as is, which I agree is not ideal. But it's good enough. My guess is that they will gradually fix issues by benefitting from Electron improvements, swapping out bits of js for more efficient WASM based stuff, etc. Mostly native app strategies are an extremely bad idea for small start ups these days. You triple the cost (or worse) of your development and inevitably you are going to do better on some platforms than others. I know people obsess about native on platforms like IOS but I find it interesting that there are quite a few unicorns out there succeeding with glorified electron/react native code bases. Slack is basically shipping a web app packaged up as an electron app on Android, IOS, Mac, Windows, and Linux. You can run the thing in a browser pretty much without loss of functionality.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Slack is in no way a "small startup".
  - jillesvangurp 7y ago
    They were when they started out and not getting distracted by a multi platform strategy is what allowed them to stop being one.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      They’ve had more than a couple of years with plenty of resources to fix their apps.
SomeOldThrow 7y ago
Of course they can, they just won’t.

kareemm 7y ago

Maybe the lesson is that a decent solution to a painful problem and great sales and marketing are a good recipe for success.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
toomuchtodo 7y ago
It is a recipe for market share. Profitability and a realistic valuation is yet to be seen.
- nwienert 7y ago
  But I don't see anyone claiming a native app is the difference to profitability.
  - omeid2 7y ago
    I don't think they do, most "office worker" computer resources are way over provisioned, at least in the developed countries. Does resource consumption matters to me? yes, but that is because I compile stuff, run VMs, do simulations, like many other developers. My grandma or dad at his office? they could do just fine with 1/10th of their resources. This is not an argument for wastefulness, but the reality of business world and the value of computing resources.
- FartyMcFarter 7y ago
  If the owners get rich by cashing out on an IPO, that sounds like a "recipe for success" to me.

scarface74 7y ago

Slack is a $16 billion dollar company on paper but still not profitable and showing no signs of profitability. It’s not like Slack is printing money.

robodale 7y ago
They will be if they inject ads in between your messages (free version only). "Rid Belly Fat NOW! Click Here!"
- jay_kyburz 7y ago
  Haha, and that will be the last slack message I ever read.

marcrosoft 7y ago

Maybe because the real future is web apps and has been for more than a decade now.

Apocryphon 7y ago
In the same way Linux is perpetually the future of desktop?
- carlosdp 7y ago
  Not really comparable, the web already has massive adoption, just needs to get better at high-performance client apps. And with WebAssembly + PWAs, and WebGPU in development, it's getting very close.
  - bigiain 7y ago
    "Linux already has massive adoption in the server and embedded spaces, just needs to get better at office-related client apps"... 2019, celebrating the eleventh consecutive "This is the Year of Linux on the desktop"...
cududa 7y ago
If it’s been the future for a decade, and that future isn’t here ... is it really the future of applications?
- narag 7y ago
  I would replace "the future" with saying that it's much more profitable for vendors and less convenient for users, so it's being adopted as fast as vendors can overcome users's resistance.
  - marcrosoft 7y ago
    It is actually much more convenient for users. They can switch computers/phone/OSes and have the same experience. The same is not true with native apps.

carlosdp 7y ago

I think the pure-web play will end up being a better decision in the long run tbh.

dstaley 7y ago
I think from an app developer's perspective, web-based apps are definitely the way to go. That's because it's so incredibly difficult to build a good web, Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android app. I'm hopeful that one day making good native apps will be as easy and accessible as web development.
- dmitriid 7y ago
  It’s significantly easier to build a good native app than a good web app. However, it’s significantly harder to build several native apps for each OS/platform with the same level of polish and functionality than a single web app that will work on all of them.

narag 7y ago

Do Microsoft and Apple really want native apps? I've got the opposite impression: they've tried very hard to herd desktop apps into Apple Store model. Third party vendors, like Adobe, are also forcing clients to adopt subscription schemes.

lawnchair_larry 7y ago
Those are still native apps. I believe parent is comparing to bloated Electron crap that requires an entire Chromium instance to put a GUI on what is basically IRC and text editors.
dstaley 7y ago
What does a subscription have to do with native apps though? All of Adobe's apps are native apps even though they require a subscription license.
- narag 7y ago
  Sorry I wasn't clear. The underlying problem is piracy. Big players like Adobe can still use the subscription model. For most vendors, the easiest choice is going the web route. Deployment is another PITA that makes App Store model desirable for the vendors. For Apple and Microsoft it's even better because they get a cut, they curate their platforms and have the upper hand over vendors lest they become competition.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    I doubt that Slack would ever offer subscriptions through the App Store.
    - narag 7y ago
      With $16B valuation they can afford not to, of course.

reitzensteinm 7y ago

I don't even think they need to make a native app; I use plenty of Electron apps day to day, like VSCode, Atom, GitHub Desktop and they're all fine. Slack however is borderline unusable. Ghost processes, background workspaces silently closing and not delivering notifications, processes pinned at 100% CPU, silent crashes, pauses while typing, and even sometimes character drops. I've tried it on three laptops from two vendors all with 16gb of memory, 100% SSD and an i7. I've got Mac user friends that tell me they've never had any of the above issues, and I believe them. I've used it on a Mac, though not as a daily driver, and it's fine. It just feels to me like Windows is a second tier platform for Slack, where they're fixing the bare minimum to not lose market share.

jay_kyburz 7y ago
I'm a Windows user and I never have any of those problems. Our organisation is only about 10 people so I guess we are not pushing it very hard.
hindsightbias 7y ago
When my late model macbook pro fan starts running, it’s always slack. And thats several times a week. At least it’s not another Box spinning beachball.

jillesvangurp 7y ago

The pain of forking development into multiple separate teams with completely different technology stacks, bugs, and coordination overhead is just not worth it for most startups. It slows you down when you need to be able to adapt quickly. A lot of unicorns in the past would have addressed this by simply focusing on one platform initially but for an application like this that is not feasible. Even Linux support is not optional for a company like Slack since a lot of the decision makers on stuff like this tend to be in the IT department which in many companies would include at least a few Linux users. By going all in on Electron, they ensured access to all relevant platforms from day one. The reality is, that most of their user base is completely fine with performance as is, which I agree is not ideal. But it's good enough. My guess is that they will gradually fix issues by benefitting from Electron improvements, swapping out bits of js for more efficient WASM based stuff, etc. Mostly native app strategies are an extremely bad idea for small start ups these days. You triple the cost (or worse) of your development and inevitably you are going to do better on some platforms than others. I know people obsess about native on platforms like IOS but I find it interesting that there are quite a few unicorns out there succeeding with glorified electron/react native code bases. Slack is basically shipping a web app packaged up as an electron app on Android, IOS, Mac, Windows, and Linux. You can run the thing in a browser pretty much without loss of functionality.

saagarjha 7y ago
Slack is in no way a "small startup".
- jillesvangurp 7y ago
  They were when they started out and not getting distracted by a multi platform strategy is what allowed them to stop being one.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    They’ve had more than a couple of years with plenty of resources to fix their apps.

SomeOldThrow 7y ago

Of course they can, they just won’t.