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Microsoft bans free Slack and discourages AWS and Google Docs use internally
- CameronBanga 7y agoA bit of a hyperbole on this. Slack is allowed for example, but only the enterprise edition which allows for them to meet compliance regulations. This sort of policy is pretty typical at any organization of size with a proper legal team.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoI wonder if Slack lets organizations do on-premises (for compliance purposes, as you mention) e.g., as GitHub Enterprise does (many companies don't want to keep their raw source code in someone else's cloud).
- xchaotic 7y agoThey don't have such a product yet
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoKind of surprising, to be honest. Business communication could be more valuable than source code to a bad actor.
- heavymark 7y agoThe enterprise version they note is secure enough but still discouraged because it’s less about security and more about perception. Why would customers want to use the Microsoft equivalent if even their employees don’t.
- eganist 7y agoIt's definitely not just hyperbole. "Microsoft bans Free Slack" would've been accurate. "Microsoft bans Slack" is actually false.
- dang 7y agoOk, we've made Slack free above.
- benbristow 7y agoDoesn't surprise me Grammarly is banned. The whole thing just screams 'keylogger'. Send us all your keystrokes in return for grammar corrections, deal?
- thunfisch 7y agoHad to try out Teams at work recently, because the corporate IT wants us to switch over from Slack. I'm working in operations for a daughter company of corporate IT. Tried it. It's a joke compared to Slack. Horrible UI and calls dropped all the time, combined with 90s quality. In the case of an incident (I work remote) I cannot rely on Teams at all. So, maybe some of the microsoft employees feel the same about Teams, and that's why they still use Slack? Interesting though.
- eganist 7y agoThis may be one of the more clickbaity articles that's crossed the wire in the world of compliance, and Tom Warren's background at Deutsche and Morgan Stanley until 2011 unwinds an ignorance defense; he knows how these compliance policies work. dang, can we de-clickbait the title? Or does it currently survive HN's policies?
- ZhuanXia 7y agoCompanies that big have maintain a weird balance between a strategy tax and eating your own dogfood.
- tanin 7y agoThey gave two reasons, which are risk of security and eating your own dogfood. Those seem reasonable. Can anyone explain what the point of this article is? I read it and can't see one.
- profmonocle 7y agoDiscouraging AWS also makes financial sense. Why give Amazon its profit margin when they can use Azure at cost?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- polskibus 7y agoWhat is Github running on? Isn't it AWS? If so, are they migrating to Azure?
- profmonocle 7y agoGitHub isn't cloud-hosted, they have their own infrastructure: https://github.blog/2017-10-12-evolution-of-our-data-centers/ https://github.blog/2017-10-12-evolution-of-our-data-centers...
- justinclift 7y ago> The Grammarly Office add-in and browser extensions should not be used on the Microsoft network because they are able to access Information Rights Management (IRM) protected content within emails and documents, Oh the irony. Microsoft exfiltrates telemetry/data for all of it's product users, but complains when others do the same to it. Has Grammarly "pulled a Microsoft" and not given meaningful options to completely disable it?
- giancarlostoro 7y agoThey are afraid of corporate espionage it sounds like. If any of that telemetry is ever swapped to some random Chinese telemetry firm there is no telling who snoops on it then. I only use my work Slack account at work and all other Slack workspaces on my personal phone. I assume this is what MS employees will do.
- CDSlice 7y agoDoes MS actually include or access data from your emails and docs when they do telemetry? I thought it was more stuff like what apps are being used and what you use Cortana for and stuff like that. Which isn't great but also doesn't pose an IRM risk.
- justinclift 7y agoThey (at least used to) include things like docs when uploading crash dumps and similar. Bit of a problem when it's in a medical or other security sensitive setting. Patient data, etc. :/
- BossingAround 7y agoSlack, Trello, Grammarly, free-tier GSuite, and other tools are gaining access to some highly privileged information at a lot of companies... It's just a matter of time when something bad happens because 'you gave us permissions to all the data in the TOS you signed' or something similar. I personally dislike all of the above, but am forced to use some of the tools :/.
- davidgerard 7y agoReblog of https://www.geekwire.com/2019/no-slack-microsoft-puts-rival-app-internal-list-prohibited-discouraged-software/ https://www.geekwire.com/2019/no-slack-microsoft-puts-rival-...
- richliss 7y agoFair play for the dog fooding on Teams. Simple solution on Grammarly - MS should buy the company. It’s a definite example of a tool to make SME’s more effective and I’d love to see it rolled into Office 365 rather than the current cost.
- heavymark 7y agoAlways silly to force employees to use your own software. It was better or even close the employees would use it. Instead they should promote using the best so they know how to improve their own. I understand banning free slack if it’s a security concern but saying they recommend not using the grid is just a poor practice.