6 ms·

Personally I think their big, incomprehensibly stupid manoeuver was the Skype vs Skype for Business (Link) split. Had they merged them into a single client that

Personally I think their big, incomprehensibly stupid manoeuver was the Skype vs Skype for Business (Link) split. Had they merged them into a single client that could speak either protocol and share contact lists the story would have been very different. Why are megacorps so incomprehensibly clueless about this? Is the money pit so deep that they knock each other in while in-fighting for control on the edge of it?

bayindirh 2y ago
> Is the money pit so deep that they knock each other in while in-fighting for control on the edge of it? I remember somebody saying "Micorosft is an amalgam of different power centers and dynamics. Some people inside genuinely loves open source and wants to be part of that, and some hate it like it's the evil itself. So, there's in-fighting and power struggles in many areas in Microsoft". I think the comment came after a project manager personally gutted .NET Core's Hot Reload support to give closed source parts a boost, and things got very ugly both inside and outside of Microsoft.
- 3D30497420 2y ago
  Obligatory "Internal structure of tech companies": https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/6jw33z/internal_structure_of_tech_companies/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/6jw33z/int...
  - teddyh 2y ago
    Link to original artist: <https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts> (Including a partial update: <https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts-update https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts-update>)
  - robotnikman 2y ago
    The Oracle one always gets me lmao
decimalenough 2y ago
Lync was completely unrelated software with a different tech stack that was just branded as Skype. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_for_Business https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_for_Business
- dcminter 2y ago
  I know, that's my point - branding Lync (thanks for the correction, I forgot the spelling) damaged the Skype brand to no real benefit. I know Teams is fairly pervasive, but that's on the usual Microsoft Enterprise stranglehold, certainly not on Teams' merits or riding the popularity of Skype pre Microsoft.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    I don't much care for Teams but I write that off to basically not using the Microsoft Office suite at all and maybe doing a Teams call once every 6 months, if that.
  - soundnote 2y ago
    It's not just the enterprise stranglehold, though that's surely part of it. But Teams, at least today and on Windows, is GOOD. It works well for internal meetings and chat, calls are good, and on the unregistered outsider webinar attendee experience, Teams has just been better than Zoom in my experience. Also, even if you just want to buy Teams, from what I've checked the barebones Teams only packages MS sells for smaller orgs are still cheaper than Slack. Actually, let's see... yeap, Slack Pro's 8€/mo/user, Teams Essentials is 4€/user/mo, M365 Business Basic is 6€/user/mo.
    - jcelerier 2y ago
      > But Teams, at least today and on Windows, is GOOD. I don't remember the last time I had a meeting on teams that didn't include a rant about teams
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
I think it was the other way around, they know about the issues with Skype and built something new, but they knew the power of the Skype brand so they slapped it onto their new product.
- dcminter 2y ago
  I think that must have been the logic. I just contend that it was a stupid approach! They damaged their consumer brand badly to give an imperceptible boost to the business product their customers were already locked into.
hnlurker22 2y ago
This is what happens when you hire leet code engineers and they become managers. Look at Google now. This isn't some magical outcome of big corps. A big corp is practically the people who work there.
- ljm 2y ago
  It’s not really about ‘leet code engineers’ getting into management but the perverse incentives involved in climbing up the corporate ladder. It’s as if it doesn’t matter what project you pitch and what the fallout is as long as some KPI somewhere gets a boost. Just get your promotion and ride off into the sunset, someone else will deal with the aftermath.
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    It's not just about incentives. It's about selecting for the kind of people who succeed under those incentive structures. Even if you're hiring a cross section of the population or a cross section of software developers or management professionals only a slice of it is gonna stick around long enough to influence the organization. For example, you don't find a lot of Ron Swanson types working for insurance, the court system, or health and safety. Those personality types are either gonna find a new job, turn into a bitter shell of a person counting the days to retirement or go postal and finding a new job is obviously the superior option. The comparison between Google and Microsoft (or whatever) is gonna be similar though the differences will be more nuanced. Same thing for big banks. Same for big oil. Same for big anything. You've got these differing corporate cultures and incentive sets and they select for different people.
  - snoman 2y ago
    At Microsoft, for every Principal Engineer/Manager there’s a dead internal project that nobody uses but had “… lots of impact.”
- bayindirh 2y ago
  Microsoft is built on completely different ethos and evolved from there. (I think it was Paul Allen is who said it) "Microsoft is a corporation built upon the idea of intellectual property". So being closed source, aggressive safeguarding of IP and locking users in is the DNA of Microsoft. Yes, company is made of people, but there's also a foundational DNA. When you keep that DNA alive, the company changes and eats the people fed into it, without evolving (See Apple, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, OpenAI, etc.). Google's DNA has been changed from the top from a powerful but gentle giant to subtle but very evil giant.
windex 2y ago
>Why are megacorps so incomprehensibly clueless about this? Management by committees. Lots of office politics. Most senior execs have successfully failed upwards. Once every 18 months they let go of people they stick the blame on thereby losing any memory of design decisions.
- 3vidence 2y ago
  I feel like I'm currently experiencing failing upwards. I had a kid recently and have been putting less into my work, mostly just pushing back on asks and delegating because I don't have time. All of a sudden I have senior management potential haha. Feels like I'm living in the movie office space
addicted 2y ago
Skype for Business, which was really just a rebranding of Microsoft Lync, destroyed the Skype brand. But it also indirectly damaged both variations. Skype for Business became less of a “business” software like Lync was. So unlike Lync, which was fairly spartan but information dense, Skype for Business added a ton of white space, colors, icons, etc making it less efficient and less serious than Lync. At the same time, Skype itself became purely consumer and went way down that route, focusing more on Temu like animation gimmicks than actually being a communication tool for friends and families.
htrp 2y ago
> Is the money pit so deep that they knock each other in while in-fighting for control on the edge of it? Yes. rivalry is at it's finest (and fiercest) when you're fighting your peer divisions inside the same company.
tracker1 2y ago
Microsoft had MANY opportunities for this, Google as well for that matter. Especially if you consider Instant Messenger clients. I absolutely loved Google Hangouts when it was the all in one solution (including GV and SMS integration on the phone). MS(N) Messenger could have been very close as well a couple times. It's the management decisions to try to dramatically change or replace things that lands with lesser solutions in the end. Because the incentives and bonus structure are mostly screwed up in many of these companies. Skype could have been the best, be all, end all solution for MS and brought everyone to their knees and just killed them. But it wasn't the first, or last time this would happen.

bayindirh 2y ago

> Is the money pit so deep that they knock each other in while in-fighting for control on the edge of it? I remember somebody saying "Micorosft is an amalgam of different power centers and dynamics. Some people inside genuinely loves open source and wants to be part of that, and some hate it like it's the evil itself. So, there's in-fighting and power struggles in many areas in Microsoft". I think the comment came after a project manager personally gutted .NET Core's Hot Reload support to give closed source parts a boost, and things got very ugly both inside and outside of Microsoft.

3D30497420 2y ago
Obligatory "Internal structure of tech companies": https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/6jw33z/internal_structure_of_tech_companies/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/6jw33z/int...
- teddyh 2y ago
  Link to original artist: <https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts> (Including a partial update: <https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts-update https://bonkersworld.net/organizational-charts-update>)
- robotnikman 2y ago
  The Oracle one always gets me lmao

decimalenough 2y ago

Lync was completely unrelated software with a different tech stack that was just branded as Skype. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_for_Business https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_for_Business

dcminter 2y ago
I know, that's my point - branding Lync (thanks for the correction, I forgot the spelling) damaged the Skype brand to no real benefit. I know Teams is fairly pervasive, but that's on the usual Microsoft Enterprise stranglehold, certainly not on Teams' merits or riding the popularity of Skype pre Microsoft.
- ghaff 2y ago
  I don't much care for Teams but I write that off to basically not using the Microsoft Office suite at all and maybe doing a Teams call once every 6 months, if that.
- soundnote 2y ago
  It's not just the enterprise stranglehold, though that's surely part of it. But Teams, at least today and on Windows, is GOOD. It works well for internal meetings and chat, calls are good, and on the unregistered outsider webinar attendee experience, Teams has just been better than Zoom in my experience. Also, even if you just want to buy Teams, from what I've checked the barebones Teams only packages MS sells for smaller orgs are still cheaper than Slack. Actually, let's see... yeap, Slack Pro's 8€/mo/user, Teams Essentials is 4€/user/mo, M365 Business Basic is 6€/user/mo.
  - jcelerier 2y ago
    > But Teams, at least today and on Windows, is GOOD. I don't remember the last time I had a meeting on teams that didn't include a rant about teams

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

I think it was the other way around, they know about the issues with Skype and built something new, but they knew the power of the Skype brand so they slapped it onto their new product.

dcminter 2y ago
I think that must have been the logic. I just contend that it was a stupid approach! They damaged their consumer brand badly to give an imperceptible boost to the business product their customers were already locked into.

hnlurker22 2y ago

This is what happens when you hire leet code engineers and they become managers. Look at Google now. This isn't some magical outcome of big corps. A big corp is practically the people who work there.

ljm 2y ago
It’s not really about ‘leet code engineers’ getting into management but the perverse incentives involved in climbing up the corporate ladder. It’s as if it doesn’t matter what project you pitch and what the fallout is as long as some KPI somewhere gets a boost. Just get your promotion and ride off into the sunset, someone else will deal with the aftermath.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  It's not just about incentives. It's about selecting for the kind of people who succeed under those incentive structures. Even if you're hiring a cross section of the population or a cross section of software developers or management professionals only a slice of it is gonna stick around long enough to influence the organization. For example, you don't find a lot of Ron Swanson types working for insurance, the court system, or health and safety. Those personality types are either gonna find a new job, turn into a bitter shell of a person counting the days to retirement or go postal and finding a new job is obviously the superior option. The comparison between Google and Microsoft (or whatever) is gonna be similar though the differences will be more nuanced. Same thing for big banks. Same for big oil. Same for big anything. You've got these differing corporate cultures and incentive sets and they select for different people.
- snoman 2y ago
  At Microsoft, for every Principal Engineer/Manager there’s a dead internal project that nobody uses but had “… lots of impact.”
bayindirh 2y ago
Microsoft is built on completely different ethos and evolved from there. (I think it was Paul Allen is who said it) "Microsoft is a corporation built upon the idea of intellectual property". So being closed source, aggressive safeguarding of IP and locking users in is the DNA of Microsoft. Yes, company is made of people, but there's also a foundational DNA. When you keep that DNA alive, the company changes and eats the people fed into it, without evolving (See Apple, IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, OpenAI, etc.). Google's DNA has been changed from the top from a powerful but gentle giant to subtle but very evil giant.

windex 2y ago

>Why are megacorps so incomprehensibly clueless about this? Management by committees. Lots of office politics. Most senior execs have successfully failed upwards. Once every 18 months they let go of people they stick the blame on thereby losing any memory of design decisions.

3vidence 2y ago
I feel like I'm currently experiencing failing upwards. I had a kid recently and have been putting less into my work, mostly just pushing back on asks and delegating because I don't have time. All of a sudden I have senior management potential haha. Feels like I'm living in the movie office space

addicted 2y ago

Skype for Business, which was really just a rebranding of Microsoft Lync, destroyed the Skype brand. But it also indirectly damaged both variations. Skype for Business became less of a “business” software like Lync was. So unlike Lync, which was fairly spartan but information dense, Skype for Business added a ton of white space, colors, icons, etc making it less efficient and less serious than Lync. At the same time, Skype itself became purely consumer and went way down that route, focusing more on Temu like animation gimmicks than actually being a communication tool for friends and families.

htrp 2y ago

> Is the money pit so deep that they knock each other in while in-fighting for control on the edge of it? Yes. rivalry is at it's finest (and fiercest) when you're fighting your peer divisions inside the same company.

tracker1 2y ago

Microsoft had MANY opportunities for this, Google as well for that matter. Especially if you consider Instant Messenger clients. I absolutely loved Google Hangouts when it was the all in one solution (including GV and SMS integration on the phone). MS(N) Messenger could have been very close as well a couple times. It's the management decisions to try to dramatically change or replace things that lands with lesser solutions in the end. Because the incentives and bonus structure are mostly screwed up in many of these companies. Skype could have been the best, be all, end all solution for MS and brought everyone to their knees and just killed them. But it wasn't the first, or last time this would happen.