4 ms·

Matrix seems to be the future now. The present is, however, Slack.

bachmeier 7y ago
> The present is, however, Slack. Actually, in terms of number of users, the present is MS Teams. Both companies release their numbers and it's not even close.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  Not surprised there. Plenty of companies already in bed with Microsoft. This allows them to maintain a "familiar" setup to everything else they have. Still feel like competitors can do better though. Microsoft Teams looks nice but people still have issues with it. I only used it long enough to not see those issues.
  - bachmeier 7y ago
    > This allows them to maintain a "familiar" setup to everything else they have. What's important is that when you log into your email account, you're logging into Teams, Planner, etc. I recently started using Planner, as awful as it is (seriously, you can't even drag cards!) because I can't expect others to adopt a new tool.
- sascha_sl 7y ago
  Are these real active users, or just "so many accounts in the attched AD" though?
  - bachmeier 7y ago
    Not sure, but I really don't believe Slack's numbers either. I have a Slack account that only occasionally gets used, so they probably count me. Whatever the real numbers might be, Teams is very heavily used. My university has Office 365 and Teams comes with it for free. No need to pay for Slack. No need to expect others to use a new tool and a new app and a new login when Teams is right there.
- eikenberry 7y ago
  Completely due to bundling. My last employer was using Slack until MS basically told them they could have Teams for free as part of the O365 subscription.
SamWhited 7y ago
Matrix will likely never take off, sadly. I was hoping for an alternative for a while too, but not having a proper standards body to advocate for and push the standard probably means it's not displacing XMPP any time soon. Also the protocol just isn't great for chat; if you need a giant distributed graph database, great, but for chat it's just very heavy.
- neiljohnson 7y ago
  The evolution of the Matrix protocol is governed by the Matrix.org Foundation (https://matrix.org/foundation/ https://matrix.org/foundation/). XSF contributed the XMPP spec to the IETF after ~10 years, Matrix is a younger protocol (2014) and perhaps it will do something similar in the future. Given the adoption rates of Matrix, I think it is fair to conclude it is a good fit for chat. Though it is fair to call out that it works quite differently under the hood from many other chat protocols. The decentralised architecture adds a resilience not possible in a purely federated system.
  - Zash 7y ago
    A correction: The Jabber project started in 1999 and https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3921 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3921 was published in 2004. https://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/xmppwg/2002-May/000000.html https://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/xmppwg/2002-May/000000.htm... suggests that the IETF process was already started in 2002.
    - neiljohnson 7y ago
      Oh interesting, thank you for the correction. In any case Matrix would not rule out working with the IETF in the future, but for now the Matrix.org Foundation manages the governance of the protocol.
  - SamWhited 7y ago
    If they donated the spec to a proper standards body I would be much more comfortable with it.

> The present is, however, Slack. Actually, in terms of number of users, the present is MS Teams. Both companies release their numbers and it's not even close.

giancarlostoro 7y ago
Not surprised there. Plenty of companies already in bed with Microsoft. This allows them to maintain a "familiar" setup to everything else they have. Still feel like competitors can do better though. Microsoft Teams looks nice but people still have issues with it. I only used it long enough to not see those issues.
- bachmeier 7y ago
  > This allows them to maintain a "familiar" setup to everything else they have. What's important is that when you log into your email account, you're logging into Teams, Planner, etc. I recently started using Planner, as awful as it is (seriously, you can't even drag cards!) because I can't expect others to adopt a new tool.
sascha_sl 7y ago
Are these real active users, or just "so many accounts in the attched AD" though?
- bachmeier 7y ago
  Not sure, but I really don't believe Slack's numbers either. I have a Slack account that only occasionally gets used, so they probably count me. Whatever the real numbers might be, Teams is very heavily used. My university has Office 365 and Teams comes with it for free. No need to pay for Slack. No need to expect others to use a new tool and a new app and a new login when Teams is right there.
eikenberry 7y ago
Completely due to bundling. My last employer was using Slack until MS basically told them they could have Teams for free as part of the O365 subscription.

SamWhited 7y ago

Matrix will likely never take off, sadly. I was hoping for an alternative for a while too, but not having a proper standards body to advocate for and push the standard probably means it's not displacing XMPP any time soon. Also the protocol just isn't great for chat; if you need a giant distributed graph database, great, but for chat it's just very heavy.

neiljohnson 7y ago
The evolution of the Matrix protocol is governed by the Matrix.org Foundation (https://matrix.org/foundation/ https://matrix.org/foundation/). XSF contributed the XMPP spec to the IETF after ~10 years, Matrix is a younger protocol (2014) and perhaps it will do something similar in the future. Given the adoption rates of Matrix, I think it is fair to conclude it is a good fit for chat. Though it is fair to call out that it works quite differently under the hood from many other chat protocols. The decentralised architecture adds a resilience not possible in a purely federated system.
- Zash 7y ago
  A correction: The Jabber project started in 1999 and https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3921 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3921 was published in 2004. https://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/xmppwg/2002-May/000000.html https://mail.jabber.org/pipermail/xmppwg/2002-May/000000.htm... suggests that the IETF process was already started in 2002.
  - neiljohnson 7y ago
    Oh interesting, thank you for the correction. In any case Matrix would not rule out working with the IETF in the future, but for now the Matrix.org Foundation manages the governance of the protocol.
- SamWhited 7y ago
  If they donated the spec to a proper standards body I would be much more comfortable with it.