4 ms·

Slack is floundering and profoundly embarrassed after mocking Microsoft publicly with a full NYT ad [1]. Slack has barely changed for 4 years meanwhile Teams h

by 0xy 6y ago

Slack is floundering and profoundly embarrassed after mocking Microsoft publicly with a full NYT ad [1]. Slack has barely changed for 4 years meanwhile Teams has unprecedented deep integrations with business tools. Competing is not taking two years to release a single feature (shared channels), Slack. The company is stagnating, and this is senior leadership responding by trying to wield the power of the government against a competitor. Slack went from (literally) "we'll be right there ready [for your competition]" to salty lawsuits and sour grapes. This is pathetic. Compete or die. [1] https://www.geekwire.com/2016/full-text-slack-offers-friendly-advice-microsoft-full-page-new-york-times-ad/ https://www.geekwire.com/2016/full-text-slack-offers-friendl...

rckoepke 6y ago
I largely agree with Slack failing to innovate on the user experience side and continue to deliver new value to customers. I give them the benefit of the doubt that they've been doing lots of innovation on the backend that I can't see. In my heart I feel that as long as Teams remains at least a half-decent product it will be very difficult for anyone else to compete in this space as long as MS bundles Teams with Office. Office absolutely is a monopoly -- pretty much any new software that's bundled with it is going to eat everyone's lunch. Doesn't matter if that's Teams or a Spotify clone ("Music for Office") or an HR suite. This rule feels valid to me for any general purpose software that's used in nearly any business. I don't think it holds up for specific domain software: VSCode doesn't eat IntelliJ's lunch, and a half-decent Photoshop clone included with Office365 wouldn't kill Photoshop. It also doesn't hold for other free software (Edge can't eat Chrome because Chrome is also $0 so they only compete on utility, not price). If it ends up there's no future competition for Teams, that's not going to be a good thing for consumers / citizens at large. It's definitely in the interests of the public to ensure that there's a healthy market for competition. Part of making sure things are good for consumers / citizens is also making sure there can be tight integration. If Slack can make a client that integrates Teams and Slack channels into one frontend, and integrates with Outlook/Exchange/Calendar as well as Teams does, and allows users to hop on Zoom calls, that would be amazing. I'm currently a strong proponent for opening up API's in software so that new companies can add value on top of existing services, rather than having to build all of Rome from scratch just to develop the Colosseum.
- Rapzid 6y ago
  Haven't needed to use Office professionally in over half a decade; it's been Google's office suite. Hardly a monopoly.
  - rckoepke 6y ago
    Usually better to attach numbers to anecdotes, although reasonable people can still disagree on the interpretation or reliability of those numbers. "Microsoft had 87.5% of the email and authoring market (formerly named the office suite market) share in 2018, according to Gartner's 2019 market research. Google held 10.4% of the market." https://www.ciodive.com/news/Google-Microsoft-Office-collaboration/571740/ https://www.ciodive.com/news/Google-Microsoft-Office-collabo...

by 0xy 6y ago

rckoepke 6y ago

I largely agree with Slack failing to innovate on the user experience side and continue to deliver new value to customers. I give them the benefit of the doubt that they've been doing lots of innovation on the backend that I can't see. In my heart I feel that as long as Teams remains at least a half-decent product it will be very difficult for anyone else to compete in this space as long as MS bundles Teams with Office. Office absolutely is a monopoly -- pretty much any new software that's bundled with it is going to eat everyone's lunch. Doesn't matter if that's Teams or a Spotify clone ("Music for Office") or an HR suite. This rule feels valid to me for any general purpose software that's used in nearly any business. I don't think it holds up for specific domain software: VSCode doesn't eat IntelliJ's lunch, and a half-decent Photoshop clone included with Office365 wouldn't kill Photoshop. It also doesn't hold for other free software (Edge can't eat Chrome because Chrome is also $0 so they only compete on utility, not price). If it ends up there's no future competition for Teams, that's not going to be a good thing for consumers / citizens at large. It's definitely in the interests of the public to ensure that there's a healthy market for competition. Part of making sure things are good for consumers / citizens is also making sure there can be tight integration. If Slack can make a client that integrates Teams and Slack channels into one frontend, and integrates with Outlook/Exchange/Calendar as well as Teams does, and allows users to hop on Zoom calls, that would be amazing. I'm currently a strong proponent for opening up API's in software so that new companies can add value on top of existing services, rather than having to build all of Rome from scratch just to develop the Colosseum.

Rapzid 6y ago
Haven't needed to use Office professionally in over half a decade; it's been Google's office suite. Hardly a monopoly.
- rckoepke 6y ago
  Usually better to attach numbers to anecdotes, although reasonable people can still disagree on the interpretation or reliability of those numbers. "Microsoft had 87.5% of the email and authoring market (formerly named the office suite market) share in 2018, according to Gartner's 2019 market research. Google held 10.4% of the market." https://www.ciodive.com/news/Google-Microsoft-Office-collaboration/571740/ https://www.ciodive.com/news/Google-Microsoft-Office-collabo...