2 ms·

If you haven’t checked, tte messaging app market is far from dead. It’s not like Slack is some tiny startup. It’s owned by Salesforce. Not to mention Google ha

If you haven’t checked, tte messaging app market is far from dead. It’s not like Slack is some tiny startup. It’s owned by Salesforce. Not to mention Google has like five messaging apps by itself. There is also no “monopoly” in the office software space. Apple and Google have alternatives

robertlagrant 4y ago
I have checked; this move is likely the main reason why Slack was for sale. Slack even tried to make an anticompetition claim against Microsoft for this reason [0]. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53503710 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53503710
- scarface74 4y ago
  So in that case should all software companies not be allowed to bundle anything? Should Google not release a free messaging app either? Would have been okay if Microsoft had sold Teams as an add on like it does Visio?
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    > So in that case should all software companies not be allowed to bundle anything? We're talking in the domain of anticompetitiveness, where a market-dominant company can release below-average products, and because of their market position it's impossible to compete.
    - soundnote 4y ago
      From Thompson: > This is where Teams thrives: if you fully commit to the Microsoft ecosystem, one app combines your contacts, conversations, phone calls, access to files, 3rd-party applications, in a way that “just works”; I explained my personal experience with Teams in a December 2018 Daily Update: > > Here’s the thing, though: Dropbox absolutely is better than OneDrive. Google Apps are better at collaboration than Microsoft’s Office apps. Asana is better than Planner. And, to be very clear, Slack is massively better than Teams at chat. Using all of them together, though, well, it sucks: the user experience that matters for me is not any one app but all of them at once, and for the way I want to work, having everything organized in one single place is simply better (and that’s even with the normal spate of maddening Microsoft UI oddities!). In this Teams is less a chat app than it is a file explorer for the cloud generally, and Stratechery LLC specifically. > This is what Slack — and Silicon Valley, generally — failed to understand about Microsoft’s competitive advantage: the company doesn’t win just because it bundles, or because it has a superior ground game. By virtue of doing everything, even if mediocrely, the company is providing a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, particularly for the non-tech workers that are in fact most of the market. Slack may have infused its chat client with love, but chatting is a means to an end, and Microsoft often seems like the only enterprise company that understands that.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        I don't disagree, although I think the biggest advantage they have is that Microsoft sells to its customers (IT and finance departments) and not its users. One bill and one vendor is better than 8 of each.

robertlagrant 4y ago

I have checked; this move is likely the main reason why Slack was for sale. Slack even tried to make an anticompetition claim against Microsoft for this reason [0]. [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53503710 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53503710

scarface74 4y ago
So in that case should all software companies not be allowed to bundle anything? Should Google not release a free messaging app either? Would have been okay if Microsoft had sold Teams as an add on like it does Visio?
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  > So in that case should all software companies not be allowed to bundle anything? We're talking in the domain of anticompetitiveness, where a market-dominant company can release below-average products, and because of their market position it's impossible to compete.
  - soundnote 4y ago
    From Thompson: > This is where Teams thrives: if you fully commit to the Microsoft ecosystem, one app combines your contacts, conversations, phone calls, access to files, 3rd-party applications, in a way that “just works”; I explained my personal experience with Teams in a December 2018 Daily Update: > > Here’s the thing, though: Dropbox absolutely is better than OneDrive. Google Apps are better at collaboration than Microsoft’s Office apps. Asana is better than Planner. And, to be very clear, Slack is massively better than Teams at chat. Using all of them together, though, well, it sucks: the user experience that matters for me is not any one app but all of them at once, and for the way I want to work, having everything organized in one single place is simply better (and that’s even with the normal spate of maddening Microsoft UI oddities!). In this Teams is less a chat app than it is a file explorer for the cloud generally, and Stratechery LLC specifically. > This is what Slack — and Silicon Valley, generally — failed to understand about Microsoft’s competitive advantage: the company doesn’t win just because it bundles, or because it has a superior ground game. By virtue of doing everything, even if mediocrely, the company is providing a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, particularly for the non-tech workers that are in fact most of the market. Slack may have infused its chat client with love, but chatting is a means to an end, and Microsoft often seems like the only enterprise company that understands that.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      I don't disagree, although I think the biggest advantage they have is that Microsoft sells to its customers (IT and finance departments) and not its users. One bill and one vendor is better than 8 of each.