4 ms·

I thought this was going to be about bundling Teams in O365 and other biz deals. It's wild to me that Teams is so fucking horrible that many businesses who eff

I thought this was going to be about bundling Teams in O365 and other biz deals. It's wild to me that Teams is so fucking horrible that many businesses who effectively get it for free as part of other dealings still choose to pay for Slack. Sadly I know of many, many more companies where the offer is indeed too good to refuse, much to the disappointment of their workforce. I was helping out at a place where two employees needed Word and Excel licenses, and somehow they got a massive, free Teams license out of it.

dacryn 2y ago
it's because teams is not really free It's free per user, but it's quite expensive if you start adding meeting rooms, voip, webinar, ... Zoom+slack are literally cheaper in total, but the startup cost is very visible and teams startup cost is 0.
- nolok 2y ago
  Oh it's not even free per user. The moment the EU opened an investigation [1], they reacted [2] by getting it out of their bundle pack [3], and offering it on the side instead, with the new bundles being marked "[bundle name] EEA NO TEAMS", and teams being priced 5€/user/month. At least I guess kudos to Microsoft for learning a trick Facebook/Meta/Apple keep ignoring, the moment they say it coming they switched gear because they know the EU won't buy their "good for the user" thing. > Today we are announcing proactive changes that we hope will start to address these concerns in a meaningful way, even while the European Commission’s investigation continues and we cooperate with it. These changes will impact our Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites for business customers in the European Economic Area and Switzerland. They are designed to address two concerns that are central to the Commission’s investigation: (1) that customers should be able to choose a business suite without Teams at a price less than those with Teams included; and (2) that we should do more to make interoperability easier between rival communication and collaboration solutions and Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites. They also made it extra annoying to switch from a regular package to that one, and somehow when you search on products in your admin (if you're already a customer) you need to know what to type for those no teams bundle to show up. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/document/print/en/ip_23_3991/IP_23_3991_EN.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/docume... [2] https://blogs.microsoft.com/eupolicy/2023/08/31/european-competition-teams-office-microsoft-365/ https://blogs.microsoft.com/eupolicy/2023/08/31/european-com... [3] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/news/microsoft365-teams-eea https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/news/microsoft365-...
- hnlmorg 2y ago
  It’s also because the people who often mandate Teams are more comfortable with the Microsoft ecosystem. They run Windows rather than macOS. They think in terms of Active Directory. If it’s not MS then it isn’t “enterprise” in their world view.
  - 7952 2y ago
    And often their core responsibility will be security, governance, vendor management, digital transformation etc. Not the actual operations of the business or the comfort and productivity of staff.
    - hnlmorg 2y ago
      Indeed. That’s an excellent point
mhaberl 2y ago
> It's wild to me that Teams is so fucking horrible that many businesses who effectively get it for free as part of other dealings still choose to pay for Slack. I don't agree. For many years now I use Linux. I pay for Slack because some of my clients use it and it is convenient. For some other clients I need to use Teams. I like Teams better. I never had issues with them. Slack I reinstall every 2-3 months because it breaks in some weird way; last time yesterday when I uploaded a 'big file' (csv of a few mb), not only did it crash but restarting it didn't help. Teams work good for chating, for the calendar, and for video calls. I have a lot better experience with Teams for video calls than Google Meet.
- realusername 2y ago
  They must have improved something because last time I tried, it had the sound quality of a 90s phone box on Linux because they copied over the Skype code which never worked.
- gmokki 2y ago
  Slack with the bundled chrome has been slow to support Wayland, even when it has required just one build time config switch for the past 3 years. And slack does not support audio/video calls on Linux/Firefox.
- sqeaky 2y ago
  I want to avoid the ms ecosystem so much that I use teams vs other tools as a litmus test. If I am not desperate for work I tell contracting firms "no teams meetings" in writing when we setting up new contracts. Often, this is isn't a problem and they setup a zoom, webex, or even a plain phone call. Frequently, they try to setup calls on teams and usually about 15m before I remind them that I won't do teams and either they tell me to install teams and send me a windows download link (which does me no good) or the frantically struggle to do anything else. When I explain that I won't install ms software and I will skip their offer for it their mind is blown and and I refer them back to the email they saw, responded to, and agreed to. Then I avoid working for someone who ignored me and would likely ignore me again over more serious matters. I should probably have more filters like this but avoiding this and the C# work closet to me has saved me a lot of long term pain.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

dacryn 2y ago

it's because teams is not really free It's free per user, but it's quite expensive if you start adding meeting rooms, voip, webinar, ... Zoom+slack are literally cheaper in total, but the startup cost is very visible and teams startup cost is 0.

nolok 2y ago
Oh it's not even free per user. The moment the EU opened an investigation [1], they reacted [2] by getting it out of their bundle pack [3], and offering it on the side instead, with the new bundles being marked "[bundle name] EEA NO TEAMS", and teams being priced 5€/user/month. At least I guess kudos to Microsoft for learning a trick Facebook/Meta/Apple keep ignoring, the moment they say it coming they switched gear because they know the EU won't buy their "good for the user" thing. > Today we are announcing proactive changes that we hope will start to address these concerns in a meaningful way, even while the European Commission’s investigation continues and we cooperate with it. These changes will impact our Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites for business customers in the European Economic Area and Switzerland. They are designed to address two concerns that are central to the Commission’s investigation: (1) that customers should be able to choose a business suite without Teams at a price less than those with Teams included; and (2) that we should do more to make interoperability easier between rival communication and collaboration solutions and Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites. They also made it extra annoying to switch from a regular package to that one, and somehow when you search on products in your admin (if you're already a customer) you need to know what to type for those no teams bundle to show up. [1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/document/print/en/ip_23_3991/IP_23_3991_EN.pdf https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/docume... [2] https://blogs.microsoft.com/eupolicy/2023/08/31/european-competition-teams-office-microsoft-365/ https://blogs.microsoft.com/eupolicy/2023/08/31/european-com... [3] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/news/microsoft365-teams-eea https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/news/microsoft365-...
hnlmorg 2y ago
It’s also because the people who often mandate Teams are more comfortable with the Microsoft ecosystem. They run Windows rather than macOS. They think in terms of Active Directory. If it’s not MS then it isn’t “enterprise” in their world view.
- 7952 2y ago
  And often their core responsibility will be security, governance, vendor management, digital transformation etc. Not the actual operations of the business or the comfort and productivity of staff.
  - hnlmorg 2y ago
    Indeed. That’s an excellent point

mhaberl 2y ago

> It's wild to me that Teams is so fucking horrible that many businesses who effectively get it for free as part of other dealings still choose to pay for Slack. I don't agree. For many years now I use Linux. I pay for Slack because some of my clients use it and it is convenient. For some other clients I need to use Teams. I like Teams better. I never had issues with them. Slack I reinstall every 2-3 months because it breaks in some weird way; last time yesterday when I uploaded a 'big file' (csv of a few mb), not only did it crash but restarting it didn't help. Teams work good for chating, for the calendar, and for video calls. I have a lot better experience with Teams for video calls than Google Meet.

realusername 2y ago
They must have improved something because last time I tried, it had the sound quality of a 90s phone box on Linux because they copied over the Skype code which never worked.
gmokki 2y ago
Slack with the bundled chrome has been slow to support Wayland, even when it has required just one build time config switch for the past 3 years. And slack does not support audio/video calls on Linux/Firefox.
sqeaky 2y ago
I want to avoid the ms ecosystem so much that I use teams vs other tools as a litmus test. If I am not desperate for work I tell contracting firms "no teams meetings" in writing when we setting up new contracts. Often, this is isn't a problem and they setup a zoom, webex, or even a plain phone call. Frequently, they try to setup calls on teams and usually about 15m before I remind them that I won't do teams and either they tell me to install teams and send me a windows download link (which does me no good) or the frantically struggle to do anything else. When I explain that I won't install ms software and I will skip their offer for it their mind is blown and and I refer them back to the email they saw, responded to, and agreed to. Then I avoid working for someone who ignored me and would likely ignore me again over more serious matters. I should probably have more filters like this but avoiding this and the C# work closet to me has saved me a lot of long term pain.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]