4 ms·

I would bet a lot of money I already know the pitch. It's the same one that the Confluence PM I'm sure made. "We have done very well selling to technical progra

I would bet a lot of money I already know the pitch. It's the same one that the Confluence PM I'm sure made. "We have done very well selling to technical programmers and hip startups, but the market is so much bigger. shows Office 365 revenue numbers vs Slack revenue numbers. We have an opportunity to take this to the next level. We need to make this the goto office communication platform. cheers. Markdown may seem easy to use to us, but our user research shows that 90% of fortune 500 employees don't even know what markdown is. We need a more familiar interface to break into this lucrative new market and continue our growth."

ledauphin 7y ago
you're exactly right, but what I want to know is - how many of those enterprise users even know how to do italics in regular email? And is this _really_ the feature that's holding them back from Slack!?
novok 7y ago
TBH, for documentation outside of docstrings and READMEs WYSIWYG editors (usually google docs) are the most popular form of documentation for engineers. I've seen this happen naturally at a bunch of corps unless someone made a coherent documentation policy and enforced it.
GhostVII 7y ago
And they probably aren't wrong either. Even at companies made of mostly programmers, those people aren't necessarily the ones making the decision about which communication platform to use.
Roark66 7y ago
>I would bet a lot of money I already know the pitch. It's the same one that the Confluence PM I'm sure made. "We have done very well selling to technical programmers and hip startups, but the market is so much bigger. shows Office 365 revenue numbers vs Slack revenue numbers. We have an opportunity to take this to the next level. We need to make this the goto office communication platform. cheers. You're probably right. However, Slack will never be _the_ goto office communication platform until it integrates with AD and that will not happen because MS has competing software (Skype for business previously known as Lync).
- huckyaus 7y ago
  >MS has competing software (Skype for business previously known as Lync) Teams, not Skype for Business, is Microsoft's Slack competitor.
  - arethuza 7y ago
    Not sure why you were being voted down - Teams was explicitly positioned as a competitor for Slack.
  - the8472 7y ago
    Teams' editor is also terrible
- q3k 7y ago
  > You're probably right. However, Slack will never be _the_ goto office communication platform until it integrates with AD and that will not happen because MS has competing software (Skype for business previously known as Lync). Integrating with AD (or Azure AD) does not require Microsoft's blessing. Source: the product I'm working on (which is in the same market as Slack and Skype for business) is currently doing that.
- ed312 7y ago
  Slack works with Okta which works with AD. These days it seems most IT orgs don't want software interfacing with AD directly (mainly because AD is a hot mess to deal with). Also, Teams is free with O365 :(
- dagss 7y ago
  How would MS stop anyone from integrating with AD?

ledauphin 7y ago

you're exactly right, but what I want to know is - how many of those enterprise users even know how to do italics in regular email? And is this _really_ the feature that's holding them back from Slack!?

novok 7y ago

TBH, for documentation outside of docstrings and READMEs WYSIWYG editors (usually google docs) are the most popular form of documentation for engineers. I've seen this happen naturally at a bunch of corps unless someone made a coherent documentation policy and enforced it.

GhostVII 7y ago

And they probably aren't wrong either. Even at companies made of mostly programmers, those people aren't necessarily the ones making the decision about which communication platform to use.

Roark66 7y ago

>I would bet a lot of money I already know the pitch. It's the same one that the Confluence PM I'm sure made. "We have done very well selling to technical programmers and hip startups, but the market is so much bigger. shows Office 365 revenue numbers vs Slack revenue numbers. We have an opportunity to take this to the next level. We need to make this the goto office communication platform. cheers. You're probably right. However, Slack will never be _the_ goto office communication platform until it integrates with AD and that will not happen because MS has competing software (Skype for business previously known as Lync).

huckyaus 7y ago
>MS has competing software (Skype for business previously known as Lync) Teams, not Skype for Business, is Microsoft's Slack competitor.
- arethuza 7y ago
  Not sure why you were being voted down - Teams was explicitly positioned as a competitor for Slack.
- the8472 7y ago
  Teams' editor is also terrible
q3k 7y ago
> You're probably right. However, Slack will never be _the_ goto office communication platform until it integrates with AD and that will not happen because MS has competing software (Skype for business previously known as Lync). Integrating with AD (or Azure AD) does not require Microsoft's blessing. Source: the product I'm working on (which is in the same market as Slack and Skype for business) is currently doing that.
ed312 7y ago
Slack works with Okta which works with AD. These days it seems most IT orgs don't want software interfacing with AD directly (mainly because AD is a hot mess to deal with). Also, Teams is free with O365 :(
dagss 7y ago
How would MS stop anyone from integrating with AD?