4 ms·
I think Microsoft bundling IE is a very valid comparison. I guess it's hard to see what's a transparent attempt to crush Slack and what's just the regular enha
by singhrac 6y ago
I think Microsoft bundling IE is a very valid comparison.
I guess it's hard to see what's a transparent attempt to crush Slack and what's just the regular enhancement of business. After all, you can hardly buy Word alone and no one complains.
The problem I run into here is that somehow relying on antitrust prosecutorial discretion does kind of make it hard to innovate, since you might be unsure about the line between outcompeting and being anticompetitive. Slack drove HipChat out of business because it was frankly terrible. But I do think the lawyers can mostly figure this out.
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago> After all, you can hardly buy Word alone and no one complains. That seems like a very good thing to complain about! Why should I pay for Excel when I only want Word?
- paulryanrogers 6y agoIIRC it used to be possible to buy them separately.
- TheOperator 6y agoThe fact you can't hardly buy a copy of word without having a copy of teams thrown in is what's the issue. You can't get excel with powerBI without also having to buy teams. It's more how Microsoft sells Teams than the fact that Teams exists at all that raises my eyebrow. Teams doesn't sell Teams, Word and Excel sell Teams. Really saying that Microsoft won't let you buy their most popular products alone is just another way to phrase this situation.
- iakh 6y agoThis is like complaining about the coupons you get included from an online order. You're technically correct, but the version you get for "free" is pretty much just a freemium version of the actual product. It's usually limited in such a way that maybe small teams would get some benefits, but any sizeable organizations would have to pay to upgrade. As an example, being able to use an API requires an upgraded license