Slack CEO: Microsoft is ‘unhealthily preoccupied with killing us’

https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/26/21270421/slack-ceo-stewart-butterfield-microsoft-teams-competition

by Exmoor • 6 years ago

16 16 6 years ago

What is interesting to me is that Slack sees themselves as a competitor to email. I feel similarly about Matrix, and I hope that the Matrix protocol does eventually gain the wide adoption seen by email. Unfortunately Slack lacks a lot of features that are necessary for it to compete with email on a wide scale:

* end-to-end encryption support (this is the main value add for email competitors)

* support for federation and self-hosting

* multiple independent client implementations

vulcan012• 6 years ago

end-to-end encryption support
multiple independent client implementations

something that your average user really wants? Most people don't use encryption, and are fine with the standard Mail app on their phones.

nix23• 6 years ago

He means for Business (and i hope your IT-Department cares about secure communication).

And no, most people USE encryption, because they don't use Email, but Whats-App.

detaro• 6 years ago

They probably see themselves as a competitor primarily to email inside an organization. Very different priorities.

matchbok• 6 years ago

People like slack because it makes them feel more productive.

Note, that's not the same as actually being more productive, which I rarely see is the case.

verdverm• 6 years ago

We just moved Cuelang.org primarily to the new GitHub discussions emerging. Pretty cool, Productivity boon! Now if they could just add a chatroom feature... or probably integrate teams

Probably fully migrating from slack to something like gitter later

darrmit• 6 years ago

Slack seems to be unhealthily preoccupied with acting oblivious. It’s fair to say Hangouts is not a Slack competitor. It is _not_ fair to say Teams isn’t.

It’s going to become increasingly difficult for IT decision makers to justify managing or paying for Slack separately if they’re already heavily bought in to Office 365 - whether Teams can do everything Slack can or not.

JoeMayoBot• 6 years ago

Agree, one of the primary use cases for both Slack and Teams is messaging. I've seen businesses make the exact point you're making.

simonblack• 6 years ago

It’s going to become increasingly difficult for IT decision makers to justify managing or paying for Slack separately if they’re already heavily bought in to Office 365

That's the 'Killing Netscape' playbook - Why pay for Netscape when Internet Explorer comes built-in?

We all remember what happened with Internet Explorer once it became the monopoly browser - standards went out the window. (JICYMI - Embrace, Extend, Extinguish)

dangus• 6 years ago

Ultimately, Butterfield thinks Microsoft is trying to force the Teams comparison because “Microsoft benefits from the narrative that Teams is very competitive with Slack. Even though the reality is it’s principally a voice and video calling service.”

Is the CEO of Slack confusing Teams with Skype or something?

The first time I saw Teams (which was years ago when it was much more rough than today) the first thing I thought was “Slack clone.”

I don’t believe for a second that the Slack CEO believes this delusion.

SigmundA• 6 years ago

The thing is Teams does a lot, we just moved our phone system to it and chat eliminating two separate subscriptions into the O365 one we already had for email.

Is it perfect, no, but its pretty nice doing all coms through one app that generally works everywhere.

If MS where smart they would put EVERYONE!!! on Teams NOW and go over to the uservoice starting with most voted request and get to work and just dominate.

mycall2• 6 years ago

Microsoft has been in the real-time communications game much longer than Slack.

    Skype for Business 2019
    Skype for Business 2016
    Skype for Business 2015
    Lync 2013
    Lync 2010
    OCS 2007 R2
    OCS 2007
    Live Communications Server 2005 (Windows Messenger 5.1 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2005)
    Live Communications Server 2003 (Windows Messenger 5.0)
    Exchange 2000 Conferencing
    Web Telephony Engine

boublepop• 6 years ago

And still their products where shit all the way through until they could sit down and try to do a feature for feature copy of slack.

mycall2• 6 years ago

I don't think Slack has the same telephony integration capabilities (eg. Cisco iOS)

jpalomaki• 6 years ago

Teams (and apps like that) are the place where work happens in the future.

They are not (just) about chatting with your coworkers. Both Microsoft and Slack are busy building them as platforms. Instead of getting a notification link and jumping to another app, you will take your actions inside Slack/Teams.

On Microsoft side Fluid [1] is the technology that will enable this. Expect to see Fluid components from various app that allow users to perform tasks inside Teams.

Microsoft has also bought other Sharepoint like functionality to Teams. You can have wikis and share documents there.

I’ve long thought that the best-of-breed tools like Slack, Dropbox and Zoom will have hard time as individual offerings. Some consolidation would make sense for me.

[1] https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-started-with-...

Slack CEO: Microsoft is ‘unhealthily preoccupied with killing us’

Related Stories