5 ms·
Ask HN: Why is skype for business such a shit show?
I just had a miserable experience trying to get someone to connect for an online meeting using skype for business.
F*K M* what stress! Why is it so? I can’t begin to understand how the vast majority of people on this planet, who are not technical, deal with this shit and waste so many human hours and sweat.
- chovybizzass 5y agosince when is anything from Microsoft not a shit show? linkedin sucks now, github is getting worse, skype has sucked since ebay sold it to MS
- tempodox 5y agoEveryone I know uses MS Teams instead of Skype by now. That might be an option for you.
- magicalhippo 5y agoSame here. I'm not going to say Teams is the pinnacle of communication software, but for our company it just works for the important stuff. It has mostly replaced Teamviewer too, in that the remote control is fine enough. We're a Windows shop though, so I've only used the Windows and Android clients, maybe the story is different on Linux or Mac.
- tempodox 5y agoI'm using it on Mac and have no complaints. Skype was a PITA, though.
- nikau 5y ago> Everyone I know uses MS Teams instead [read more]
- partizanos 5y agoI have to use teams every day, I find extremely slow and missing basic functionality eg reply to message. It has many fancy features but honestly I find it extremely buggy especially for Linux OS.
- Zealotux 5y agoI'm baffled at how bad Teams is, I also have to use it every day at work, and it feels like bad software that would've been made 10 years ago. Everything is painfully slow, counter-intuitive, buggy, it seems every view has to reload from scratch at each tab switch, even in the native application. I don't see how Microsoft could release this, it's the first time in a long time I actively despise a piece of software.
- CodeGlitch 5y agoTo reply to a message you have to copy it and put a > in front of it. > Like this I have no idea why it isn't built into the UI
- kcplate 5y agoSeems be only a limitation of the desktop versions. I can reply to specific messages on my iOS devices without issue.
- sebazzz 5y agoOur client uses Teams, we use Teams, and we communicate with each other using the original Skype for Business federation we had when we both used Skype for Business. All because my employer somehow doesn't support Teams federation (there are Teams groups with guest accounts, but that isn't the same because it requires you to switch context).
- burntoutfire 5y agoIt's enterprise software, which means the UX is not a part of the equation when making the deal.
- 0xfaded 5y agoI had a meeting with a CIO plus team who had booked me via Skype for business. Most embarrassing call of my life. Had to dial in via shitty audio and had to send a ppt out-of-band via email. This was probably a month into the pandemic, and I got scolded for not having figured out this whole “video conferencing” by now. Seems a year later the pressures of the pandemic finally sunk Skype for business and people moved to teams, which a year ago was a also a total joke.
- gchambert 5y agoTeams is still a joke. Everything is sooooo sloooooow in it. At least Skype can run on y computer without the fans covering my voice.
- legostormtroopr 5y agoWell… my favourite joke is that “Skype for business” isn’t “Skype”, and it isn’t “for business”. Skype for business isn’t Skype, underneath its actually Lync the replacement for Microsoft Communicator. And to use it, you needed the other party to install software on their computer - which can rarely be done by standard non-admin business users. So adoption was really low, which mean the app just never was improved.
- Donckele 5y agoAh that explains the “lync” executable that I tried downloading but didnt install it thinking it was unusual the filename did not have skype in it. Double clicking it announced it was a microsoft office so i just exit.
- orev 5y agoI have no inside knowledge, but just observing the business motivation. SfB is bad because Microsoft doesn’t want people to use it; they want everyone moving to Teams. They also know they have an existing installed base, mostly (probably) of large companies who have the capability of dedicating a full team of people to run it. They have already announced that SfB will no longer get updates and the on-prem software will be discontinued soon. MS is pretty much just waiting it out until all the holdouts just cave and switch to the could stuff.