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Was Salesforce's Acquisition of Slack a Bust?

16 points by rcarmo 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
taubek 4y ago
I always forget that Salesforce has bought Slack. I don't use any Salesforce products so I don't know how could/should Slack fit into that.
- theGnuMe 4y ago
  Well it expands Salesforce's potential market. If you are using slack you could get onboarded into some other salesforce product. A lot of future remote work will be driven in slack.. I've already experienced it, so this is salesforce's moat to lose.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Rastonbury 4y ago
  Small sample but the ones I've used have become crap post Sales force acquisition, Heroku and Tableau
throwaway2056 4y ago
This is true in the sense of people are using different chat/networks as a way of isolation from different groups. I would never want to have my (most) work colleages part of my WhatsApp (or Signal). A broad section of population has deviced 1. facebook for family 2. WhatsApp for immediate connection 3. Email (mostly Gmail) for all documentation stuff 4. TikTok for just be yourself (add discord etc for the appropriate group) 5. Instagram - for show off - display the best of your life. 6. LinkedIn for I hate but have to like this manager's posts! 7. slack or teams (as dictated by the workplace) (In some ways I love that common people have eventually segregated and some how trying to bring some sort of privacy/isolation (the way they think is acceptable without FOMO)
- gsk22 4y ago
  Right on the money, except in my social circle replace WhatsApp with Snapchat. I don't think any one communication app can ever gain a true monopoly because of the social incentives to isolate groups of relationships. Having totally different apps makes enforcing that easy ("sorry, Aunt Madge, I didn't see your friend request on Snapchat. We're Facebook friends though, right?")
someonehere 4y ago
Here’s how much bloat I experienced with Slack recently. My company’s renewal came up. We are one tier below the overly priced Enterprise Grid functionality. Our sales rep insisted we meet for a check in before our renewal. I asked why, we’re happy with the service. They insisted we meet (real pushy in email, even with my associate at work who was on the thread agreed) to discuss how we’re using the product and making sure we get the most out of it. I responded that the service is set up fine, integrated with our SSO provider and our employees are using it to its design for our tier. Still pushing us for a meeting. My teammate and I got on the zoom and four or five other sales people were on the call with us. Sales rep starting going over our account and best practices for how we’re using it. It was a waste of 45 minutes for my teammate and I. I’m sure we could have also had our sales rep and one other person on the phone. The call was pointless even after insisting two times in email that the call was not needed. Yet 6 people wasted 45 minutes going over pointless info. If Slack would carve out features and drop the price and let us do a la carte, then getting on the phone with us annually would be a great upsell opportunity. However Slack is like a utility for us at this point in our use. Is it on at the moment? Yes. Then we’re good.
- akerl_ 4y ago
  “We’re happy with the service, but if you don’t send our renewal quote over this week, we’re not going to be able to process it in time and will need to pivot to reviewing alternate collaboration solutions”
mduggles 4y ago
Salesforce buying Slack made absolutely no sense, but I find the comparison to Teams strange. IME orgs use Teams when they're already in the Microsoft ecosystem since there isn't a great argument for purchasing Slack when you already have Teams included in the package you are paying for. If I'm in the market for a Slack-like product I don't look at Teams unless I'm already paying Microsoft. The real threat to Slack is less from Microsoft and more from Google if they ever launch a Slack-competitor inside of Google Workspaces. I know for my organization even if there wasn't feature parity, we would probably switch just for ease of billing and access control.
- tssva 4y ago
  Isn't Google Chat the Slack competitor inside of Google Workspaces?
  - yucky 4y ago
    Does anybody use it? Admittedly I haven't looked at it in a few years but every company I know of in the Google workspace ecosystem uses Slack instead of GChat.
    - cafard 4y ago
      Actually, we use both where I work (a non-profit).
    - tssva 4y ago
      I have no idea if anyone uses it or what the quality of it is but it does exist. The commenter I replied to seemed unaware there was an option available in Google Workspace at all.
cr3ative 4y ago
This is a tiny part of the wider picture, but Slack's social media has completely lost any personality it once had. Advertising irrelevant Salesforce conferences (to zero likes), not really interacting with people past the minimum... it's a shame. That's part of what made Slack fun to use.
mamonster 4y ago
Yeah, this is one of the biggest ripoffs of the post-2008 bullmarket. Reminder that the valuation was 24 times Slack's estimated 2021 revenue. 24 times. At the time Slack had about 140,000 paying customers IIRC, so one other way to look at it is that Benioff paid about 200k per paying customer.

16 points by rcarmo 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

I always forget that Salesforce has bought Slack. I don't use any Salesforce products so I don't know how could/should Slack fit into that.

theGnuMe 4y ago
Well it expands Salesforce's potential market. If you are using slack you could get onboarded into some other salesforce product. A lot of future remote work will be driven in slack.. I've already experienced it, so this is salesforce's moat to lose.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Rastonbury 4y ago
Small sample but the ones I've used have become crap post Sales force acquisition, Heroku and Tableau

throwaway2056 4y ago

This is true in the sense of people are using different chat/networks as a way of isolation from different groups. I would never want to have my (most) work colleages part of my WhatsApp (or Signal). A broad section of population has deviced 1. facebook for family 2. WhatsApp for immediate connection 3. Email (mostly Gmail) for all documentation stuff 4. TikTok for just be yourself (add discord etc for the appropriate group) 5. Instagram - for show off - display the best of your life. 6. LinkedIn for I hate but have to like this manager's posts! 7. slack or teams (as dictated by the workplace) (In some ways I love that common people have eventually segregated and some how trying to bring some sort of privacy/isolation (the way they think is acceptable without FOMO)

gsk22 4y ago
Right on the money, except in my social circle replace WhatsApp with Snapchat. I don't think any one communication app can ever gain a true monopoly because of the social incentives to isolate groups of relationships. Having totally different apps makes enforcing that easy ("sorry, Aunt Madge, I didn't see your friend request on Snapchat. We're Facebook friends though, right?")

someonehere 4y ago

Here’s how much bloat I experienced with Slack recently. My company’s renewal came up. We are one tier below the overly priced Enterprise Grid functionality. Our sales rep insisted we meet for a check in before our renewal. I asked why, we’re happy with the service. They insisted we meet (real pushy in email, even with my associate at work who was on the thread agreed) to discuss how we’re using the product and making sure we get the most out of it. I responded that the service is set up fine, integrated with our SSO provider and our employees are using it to its design for our tier. Still pushing us for a meeting. My teammate and I got on the zoom and four or five other sales people were on the call with us. Sales rep starting going over our account and best practices for how we’re using it. It was a waste of 45 minutes for my teammate and I. I’m sure we could have also had our sales rep and one other person on the phone. The call was pointless even after insisting two times in email that the call was not needed. Yet 6 people wasted 45 minutes going over pointless info. If Slack would carve out features and drop the price and let us do a la carte, then getting on the phone with us annually would be a great upsell opportunity. However Slack is like a utility for us at this point in our use. Is it on at the moment? Yes. Then we’re good.

akerl_ 4y ago
“We’re happy with the service, but if you don’t send our renewal quote over this week, we’re not going to be able to process it in time and will need to pivot to reviewing alternate collaboration solutions”

mduggles 4y ago

Salesforce buying Slack made absolutely no sense, but I find the comparison to Teams strange. IME orgs use Teams when they're already in the Microsoft ecosystem since there isn't a great argument for purchasing Slack when you already have Teams included in the package you are paying for. If I'm in the market for a Slack-like product I don't look at Teams unless I'm already paying Microsoft. The real threat to Slack is less from Microsoft and more from Google if they ever launch a Slack-competitor inside of Google Workspaces. I know for my organization even if there wasn't feature parity, we would probably switch just for ease of billing and access control.

tssva 4y ago
Isn't Google Chat the Slack competitor inside of Google Workspaces?
- yucky 4y ago
  Does anybody use it? Admittedly I haven't looked at it in a few years but every company I know of in the Google workspace ecosystem uses Slack instead of GChat.
  - cafard 4y ago
    Actually, we use both where I work (a non-profit).
  - tssva 4y ago
    I have no idea if anyone uses it or what the quality of it is but it does exist. The commenter I replied to seemed unaware there was an option available in Google Workspace at all.

cr3ative 4y ago

This is a tiny part of the wider picture, but Slack's social media has completely lost any personality it once had. Advertising irrelevant Salesforce conferences (to zero likes), not really interacting with people past the minimum... it's a shame. That's part of what made Slack fun to use.

mamonster 4y ago

Yeah, this is one of the biggest ripoffs of the post-2008 bullmarket. Reminder that the valuation was 24 times Slack's estimated 2021 revenue. 24 times. At the time Slack had about 140,000 paying customers IIRC, so one other way to look at it is that Benioff paid about 200k per paying customer.