7 ms·

Slack's "Dear Microsoft" [0] letter in 2016 looks even sillier now. > Dear Microsoft, > Wow. Big news! Congratulations on today’s announcements. We’re genuine

Slack's "Dear Microsoft" [0] letter in 2016 looks even sillier now. > Dear Microsoft, > Wow. Big news! Congratulations on today’s announcements. We’re genuinely excited to have some competition. Uh yeah, I don't think you are.. [0] https://slackhq.com/dear-microsoft# https://slackhq.com/dear-microsoft#

rpdillon 6y ago
I think they're making a distinction between 'competition' and 'anti-competitive behavior'.
- SaltyLemonZest 6y ago
  Sure, but their distinction seems kinda silly. They're arguing that because the Microsoft Office suite has been so successful, adding any new product to it is anti-competitive.
  - tremon 6y ago
    No, they're arguing that since Microsoft has a monopoly on office productivity software[0], adding new features to it that are in direction competition with other products is anti-competitive behaviour. And they are right about that. Microsoft has been repeatedly convicted for this behaviour (Windows Desktop -> Internet Explorer, and Windows Desktop -> Windows Media Player). Trying to argue otherwise would, IMNSHO, be silly. The only valid question remains, does Slack's offering itself (corporate IM) fall under the office productivity umbrella or not? [0] and no, you do not have to own 100% of the market before being considered a monopoly
    - TulliusCicero 6y ago
      This reasoning seems weird to me, and your examples aren't helping things. Like, sending off an OS in 2020 that had no browser or media player would obviously be extremely silly, and would present a terrible user experience for people. I just can't see including a browser in an OS as some evil practice. It just seems like obvious good sense. > adding new features to it that are in direction competition with other products is anti-competitive behaviour. Probably any new feature you could think to add to Office exists somewhere on the internet already, in some form. Is MS just not allowed to add new things now? Or what if MS manages to add something first, then an upstart competitor appears right after? Does it not count as anti-competitive then?
      - Shoue 6y ago
        I'm guessing you aren't European? Windows shipped (still does? I use Linux now) a piece of software that let you pick what browser you wanted. It was a very simple thing, just click and download the browser you prefer. I don't see how, after installing your operating system where you click through a bunch of dialogues already, clicking through one more isn't a 2020 experience, especially when the alternative is to open IE to download Firefox or Chrome.
        TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
        Sadly the browser choice thing went away at some point (maybe Windows 8?) A shame really, it was probably a better installation experience for alternative browsers than having to use IE!
        TulliusCicero 6y ago
        I don't actually remember that many dialogues the last time I installed windows. It would be pretty obnoxious if there was a dialogue for every bundled program or feature that nominally competes with others: browser, media player, text editor, shell, drawing app, firewall, anti-malware, app store, etc. There's probably a least a couple dozen programs in that category. It's not really clear to me why a few of these application types (like browser and media player) have been singled out in the past, but others are given a pass. As long as third party programs can be treated the same as first party ones once installed (e.g. default program preferences) I don't really see bundling as inherently anti-competitive.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
        I would need to double check, but I don't think Android even comes with a non "service" Video Player/Photo Viewer/Music Player. Its Google Photos/Youtube(Music). The AOSP ones are just barely maintained.
    - SaltyLemonZest 6y ago
      The issue in those cases was that the bundled products were OS-enforced defaults. In order to avoid using Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, you have to specifically intervene and customize your computer to change what happens when you click on links or open media files. I'm not entirely sold on that argument either, and it should be noted that IE's market share got eaten in non-EU markets as much as EU ones, but it makes some sense. I don't think there's a comparable concern here. Teams won't open incidentally in the course of making a Powerpoint; there's no way for me to end up using it without an affirmative decision that it's the right messaging tool for me.
      - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
        The relevant EU law is about abusing your dominance in one area to push unrelated services. Slack probably have a pretty good case, but it's gonna take years so hopefully they have a plan for dealing with this in the interim.
    - addicted 6y ago
      Except Teams isn’t even a new feature. MS has had Lync and Skype for the longest time. And MSN messenger goes back to the 90s. In fact, Microsoft has had chat apps as part of their suite since before the company that eventually released Slack even existed.
    - whereistimbo 6y ago
      According to https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/office-suites--370 https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/office-suites--370 Google holds more marketshare with G Suite with 59.91%, compared to Microsoft Office 365 with 39.96%
    - blahblah12 6y ago
      This makes no sense to me. An iPhone without a browser? There are a dozen other random apps and features in O365. Is bundling or building of these features prohibited because Microsoft Access competes with Airtable? I’d argue Teams is half zoom half chat. It’s about as similar to Slack as Access is to Airtable. Even the selling separately argument seems absurd. How is this any different than adding another Office SKU?
ProAm 6y ago
When your products next innovative feature is a lawsuit the future looks dire.
- mikece 6y ago
  Either that or they are fishing for an acquisition offer from Oracle.
  - tiernano 6y ago
    they might want an offer from Oracle, but if Oracle did buy them, everyone will leave... look at Java, Sun, etc... If Oracle buys someone you use, run away and cancel your credit cards...
  - awalton 6y ago
    Silently wishing Zoom would buy them and become the ultimate workplace productivity company...
    - SteveNuts 6y ago
      Zoom already has a chat app that's basically a Slack clone. I swear, if they were skinned the same, you couldn't tell the difference (in features, or layout).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
scoutt 6y ago
Of course IANAL, but I wonder if that letter can be used in court. "We ... know you’ll be a worthy competitor." Yeah, until we sue you...
- simion314 6y ago
  I don't know if you can call competition when the other guy is teleported directly at the finish line. This issue affects open communication applications too not only Slack. What would be ironic is if EU forces all of them to use open standards so I could integrate my open source app into Office too
  - scoutt 6y ago
    I completely agree with you, but I wanted to say they shouldn't have been so cocky back in 2016, just to go from "Slack is here to stay" to "mommy I am losing market share".
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    > EU forces all of them to use open standards The best outcome.
ascorbic 6y ago
Whether or not they actually welcomed competition, this lawsuit is perfectly consistent with that letter. The allegation is that MS is engaging in anti-competitive behaviour.
spians 6y ago
Also from the same blog > We know that playing nice with others isn’t exactly your MO, but if you can’t offer people an open platform that brings everything together into one place and makes their lives dramatically simpler, it’s just not going to work.
- dijit 6y ago
  I hate teams with a burning passion but: > it’s just not going to work. Some people love teams, and it’s enough people to stifle the company from spending even more money; and, crucially, from having sensitive data spread across multiple companies instead of just one.
  - senectus1 6y ago
    When your world before teams was : Sharepoint Mapped drives Skype for fucking business etc Teams looks A.Fucking.Mazing.
stefan_ 6y ago
Gee, how hard can you celebrate yourself for putting a lockin on IRC.
- dijit 6y ago
  “But it has emoji’s and we have a built-in bot that will fire off http requests to endpoints you choose!”
searchableguy 6y ago
I predict amazon will buy slack. This move makes sense if you think about it. 0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/04/amazon-licenses-slack-for-workers-as-slack-adopts-aws-video-call-tech.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/04/amazon-licenses-slack-for-wo...
- alex_suzuki 6y ago
  Amazon is one of Slack‘s largest customers.
  - LennyWhiteJr 6y ago
    That's a bit misleading. Amazon has up until now used their own Chime app for internal chat. Only last month was the Amazon/Slack partnership announced.
rvz 6y ago
This is the premier way of detecting a company shaking in their boots towards new competition, especially Microsoft: Writing letters to their competitors. Who does that? Facebook Inc. fought off the old giants: Google, Apple and Microsoft (which even has a stake in FB) when they revealed their 'social networks' and they all failed. Facebook owned that category. No stupid letters or any overreactions. The same Slack that said "What we’ve seen over the past couple of months is that Teams is not a competitor to Slack" [0]. The IBM deal is essentially keeping Slack alive. Maybe IBM could be thinking with Microsoft "Just like old times?" From [0]. > “I think there’s this perpetual question, which at this point is a little puzzling for us, that at some point Microsoft is going to kill us,” Right, predicting Slack's own death, even worse when he knows who will kill Slack. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/1/21244158/slack-microsoft-teams-competition-stewart-butterfield-comments https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/1/21244158/slack-microsoft-t...

rpdillon 6y ago

I think they're making a distinction between 'competition' and 'anti-competitive behavior'.

SaltyLemonZest 6y ago
Sure, but their distinction seems kinda silly. They're arguing that because the Microsoft Office suite has been so successful, adding any new product to it is anti-competitive.
- tremon 6y ago
  No, they're arguing that since Microsoft has a monopoly on office productivity software[0], adding new features to it that are in direction competition with other products is anti-competitive behaviour. And they are right about that. Microsoft has been repeatedly convicted for this behaviour (Windows Desktop -> Internet Explorer, and Windows Desktop -> Windows Media Player). Trying to argue otherwise would, IMNSHO, be silly. The only valid question remains, does Slack's offering itself (corporate IM) fall under the office productivity umbrella or not? [0] and no, you do not have to own 100% of the market before being considered a monopoly
  - TulliusCicero 6y ago
    This reasoning seems weird to me, and your examples aren't helping things. Like, sending off an OS in 2020 that had no browser or media player would obviously be extremely silly, and would present a terrible user experience for people. I just can't see including a browser in an OS as some evil practice. It just seems like obvious good sense. > adding new features to it that are in direction competition with other products is anti-competitive behaviour. Probably any new feature you could think to add to Office exists somewhere on the internet already, in some form. Is MS just not allowed to add new things now? Or what if MS manages to add something first, then an upstart competitor appears right after? Does it not count as anti-competitive then?
    - Shoue 6y ago
      I'm guessing you aren't European? Windows shipped (still does? I use Linux now) a piece of software that let you pick what browser you wanted. It was a very simple thing, just click and download the browser you prefer. I don't see how, after installing your operating system where you click through a bunch of dialogues already, clicking through one more isn't a 2020 experience, especially when the alternative is to open IE to download Firefox or Chrome.
      - TazeTSchnitzel 6y ago
        Sadly the browser choice thing went away at some point (maybe Windows 8?) A shame really, it was probably a better installation experience for alternative browsers than having to use IE!
      - TulliusCicero 6y ago
        I don't actually remember that many dialogues the last time I installed windows. It would be pretty obnoxious if there was a dialogue for every bundled program or feature that nominally competes with others: browser, media player, text editor, shell, drawing app, firewall, anti-malware, app store, etc. There's probably a least a couple dozen programs in that category. It's not really clear to me why a few of these application types (like browser and media player) have been singled out in the past, but others are given a pass. As long as third party programs can be treated the same as first party ones once installed (e.g. default program preferences) I don't really see bundling as inherently anti-competitive.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
      I would need to double check, but I don't think Android even comes with a non "service" Video Player/Photo Viewer/Music Player. Its Google Photos/Youtube(Music). The AOSP ones are just barely maintained.
  - SaltyLemonZest 6y ago
    The issue in those cases was that the bundled products were OS-enforced defaults. In order to avoid using Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player, you have to specifically intervene and customize your computer to change what happens when you click on links or open media files. I'm not entirely sold on that argument either, and it should be noted that IE's market share got eaten in non-EU markets as much as EU ones, but it makes some sense. I don't think there's a comparable concern here. Teams won't open incidentally in the course of making a Powerpoint; there's no way for me to end up using it without an affirmative decision that it's the right messaging tool for me.
    - disgruntledphd2 6y ago
      The relevant EU law is about abusing your dominance in one area to push unrelated services. Slack probably have a pretty good case, but it's gonna take years so hopefully they have a plan for dealing with this in the interim.
  - addicted 6y ago
    Except Teams isn’t even a new feature. MS has had Lync and Skype for the longest time. And MSN messenger goes back to the 90s. In fact, Microsoft has had chat apps as part of their suite since before the company that eventually released Slack even existed.
  - whereistimbo 6y ago
    According to https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/office-suites--370 https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/office-suites--370 Google holds more marketshare with G Suite with 59.91%, compared to Microsoft Office 365 with 39.96%
  - blahblah12 6y ago
    This makes no sense to me. An iPhone without a browser? There are a dozen other random apps and features in O365. Is bundling or building of these features prohibited because Microsoft Access competes with Airtable? I’d argue Teams is half zoom half chat. It’s about as similar to Slack as Access is to Airtable. Even the selling separately argument seems absurd. How is this any different than adding another Office SKU?

ProAm 6y ago

When your products next innovative feature is a lawsuit the future looks dire.

mikece 6y ago
Either that or they are fishing for an acquisition offer from Oracle.
- tiernano 6y ago
  they might want an offer from Oracle, but if Oracle did buy them, everyone will leave... look at Java, Sun, etc... If Oracle buys someone you use, run away and cancel your credit cards...
- awalton 6y ago
  Silently wishing Zoom would buy them and become the ultimate workplace productivity company...
  - SteveNuts 6y ago
    Zoom already has a chat app that's basically a Slack clone. I swear, if they were skinned the same, you couldn't tell the difference (in features, or layout).
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

scoutt 6y ago

Of course IANAL, but I wonder if that letter can be used in court. "We ... know you’ll be a worthy competitor." Yeah, until we sue you...

simion314 6y ago
I don't know if you can call competition when the other guy is teleported directly at the finish line. This issue affects open communication applications too not only Slack. What would be ironic is if EU forces all of them to use open standards so I could integrate my open source app into Office too
- scoutt 6y ago
  I completely agree with you, but I wanted to say they shouldn't have been so cocky back in 2016, just to go from "Slack is here to stay" to "mommy I am losing market share".
- searchableguy 6y ago
  > EU forces all of them to use open standards The best outcome.

ascorbic 6y ago

Whether or not they actually welcomed competition, this lawsuit is perfectly consistent with that letter. The allegation is that MS is engaging in anti-competitive behaviour.

spians 6y ago

Also from the same blog > We know that playing nice with others isn’t exactly your MO, but if you can’t offer people an open platform that brings everything together into one place and makes their lives dramatically simpler, it’s just not going to work.

dijit 6y ago
I hate teams with a burning passion but: > it’s just not going to work. Some people love teams, and it’s enough people to stifle the company from spending even more money; and, crucially, from having sensitive data spread across multiple companies instead of just one.
- senectus1 6y ago
  When your world before teams was : Sharepoint Mapped drives Skype for fucking business etc Teams looks A.Fucking.Mazing.

stefan_ 6y ago

Gee, how hard can you celebrate yourself for putting a lockin on IRC.

dijit 6y ago
“But it has emoji’s and we have a built-in bot that will fire off http requests to endpoints you choose!”

searchableguy 6y ago

I predict amazon will buy slack. This move makes sense if you think about it. 0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/04/amazon-licenses-slack-for-workers-as-slack-adopts-aws-video-call-tech.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/04/amazon-licenses-slack-for-wo...

alex_suzuki 6y ago
Amazon is one of Slack‘s largest customers.
- LennyWhiteJr 6y ago
  That's a bit misleading. Amazon has up until now used their own Chime app for internal chat. Only last month was the Amazon/Slack partnership announced.

rvz 6y ago

This is the premier way of detecting a company shaking in their boots towards new competition, especially Microsoft: Writing letters to their competitors. Who does that? Facebook Inc. fought off the old giants: Google, Apple and Microsoft (which even has a stake in FB) when they revealed their 'social networks' and they all failed. Facebook owned that category. No stupid letters or any overreactions. The same Slack that said "What we’ve seen over the past couple of months is that Teams is not a competitor to Slack" [0]. The IBM deal is essentially keeping Slack alive. Maybe IBM could be thinking with Microsoft "Just like old times?" From [0]. > “I think there’s this perpetual question, which at this point is a little puzzling for us, that at some point Microsoft is going to kill us,” Right, predicting Slack's own death, even worse when he knows who will kill Slack. [0] https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/1/21244158/slack-microsoft-teams-competition-stewart-butterfield-comments https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/1/21244158/slack-microsoft-t...