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Switching databases is significantly more painful for a _small_ portion of an organization. Getting a large organization to switch messaging platforms across al

by mikeg8 12y ago

Switching databases is significantly more painful for a _small_ portion of an organization. Getting a large organization to switch messaging platforms across all team functions probably wouldn't be a seamless as you'd like to imagine.

eitally 12y ago
Indeed. It took us about 4 years after officially switching from AIM to Skype to kill AIM, and then with Gtalk/Hangouts we're just now starting to try to kill Skype.
patmcc 12y ago
Incredibly true; for something as simple and necessary as messaging, the company I work for has: 1. A company-wide and approved solution (proprietary) that's very buggy. 2. A jabber server someone threw together so everyone could use their client or choice. 3. Google chat (through various clients). 4. MSN messenger / Skype. And they all get used by different people for different things. It's very frustrating. Switching to a new thing would be a non-starter, probably (and we couldn't move to Slack anyway, but that's another issue).
SatvikBeri 12y ago
Even at a 100 person company I knew, half the organization used gchat and half used jabber/webex connect. Each side had champions that spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to convert everyone to one platform, and last I checked they still hadn't succeeded.
- hurin 12y ago
  There are gui clients that support both protocols (i.e. I think Pidgin does) - why not just write a plugin that allows to cross-communicate between the two?
  - nemothekid 12y ago
    As time goes on I get more and more disillusioned with solutions that begin with "why not just write". Nothing excites me more than having to think about supporting yet another codebase deployed to non-technical people who will undoubtedly cause more bugs than thought possible and open more JIRA tickets about it with increasingly vague title names. At some point Slack or [integration of choice] is cheaper than having an internal engineering team to write half-baked communication solutions.

by mikeg8 12y ago

eitally 12y ago

Indeed. It took us about 4 years after officially switching from AIM to Skype to kill AIM, and then with Gtalk/Hangouts we're just now starting to try to kill Skype.

patmcc 12y ago

Incredibly true; for something as simple and necessary as messaging, the company I work for has: 1. A company-wide and approved solution (proprietary) that's very buggy. 2. A jabber server someone threw together so everyone could use their client or choice. 3. Google chat (through various clients). 4. MSN messenger / Skype. And they all get used by different people for different things. It's very frustrating. Switching to a new thing would be a non-starter, probably (and we couldn't move to Slack anyway, but that's another issue).

SatvikBeri 12y ago

Even at a 100 person company I knew, half the organization used gchat and half used jabber/webex connect. Each side had champions that spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to convert everyone to one platform, and last I checked they still hadn't succeeded.

hurin 12y ago
There are gui clients that support both protocols (i.e. I think Pidgin does) - why not just write a plugin that allows to cross-communicate between the two?
- nemothekid 12y ago
  As time goes on I get more and more disillusioned with solutions that begin with "why not just write". Nothing excites me more than having to think about supporting yet another codebase deployed to non-technical people who will undoubtedly cause more bugs than thought possible and open more JIRA tickets about it with increasingly vague title names. At some point Slack or [integration of choice] is cheaper than having an internal engineering team to write half-baked communication solutions.