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Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#151

Post by akira2501 »

midoridensha wrote: post #114
mig39 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even crazier when you realize Orkut was owned by Google!

That was the problem. Orkut was successful, but that doesn't stop Google from shutting down services. Trusting a Google service to be around long-term is folly unless it's Maps or Gmail.

IIRC the other major problem was that Orkut was invite-only for a very long time. That's partly was it was so popular in a few South American countries, it was very difficult to get yourself on the platform, and even if you did, it was difficult to use it to communicate with anyone locally.

Google was not the giant then that it is now.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#152

Post by stevenhuang »

kbrannigan wrote: post #129
Maarten88 wrote: post #85

Long ago Microsoft had MSN Messenger, which was one of the leading messaging apps. It worked well, and many 'normal' users were using it. Then Microsoft dissolved the team behind it and screwed up the product so bad with bloatware and ads that everyone moved to WhatsApp (except in the US where people went back to texting). Then Microsoft came out with Communicator, renamed it to Lync, which was a corporate messenger/…

Those messenger programs were ahead of their time. Even today they feel modern. I still remember the jingle : " ta-dat-dat " with the screen shaking. The tube monitors with that square screens, that could heat a whole room.

Nudges IIRC they were called.

I remember using cheat engine and sending infinite nudges to friends. Good times.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#153

Post by SkyPuncher »

jagged-chisel wrote: post #41
yawnxyz wrote: post #40

This happens because of how Microsoft approaches product development and design. On many product teams, PMs end up doing not only the product design decisions but even designs much of the products themselves. This works for them because it focuses product cycles on releasing what "matters" to the customer, but it ends up cutting craft and quality. This makes their products poor to use, but is also what drives revenue…

I suggest that Teams only gets used because it’s included in the enormous license that companies buy for Exchange and/or Office and the most popular alternative has its own fees. Large companies don’t want to fork over another licensing fee in the tens of thousands of dollars for Slack when they’re getting Teams “free.”

I think it goes beyond just the licensing fee. It makes compliance/on-boarding significantly easier to have everything bundled. If you're using Exchange/Office, you've already vetted Microsoft for your use case.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#154

Post by fomine3 »

ghiculescu wrote: post #136
colinmhayes wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, every Fortune 500 company already has a msft office contract. Getting everyone on teams is as easy as an IT guy clicking a box and everyone has it on their computer. Doesn’t have to be a great product when it’s that easy to start using. Really Microsoft’s entire company revolves around this “lock them in and utilize our relationship to grow new products” strategy.

Hmm, but many of those companies probably have a Salesforce contract too. What do you think will happen if/when SF bundles Slack?

I think Salesforce isn't used/needed so much like MS Office. MS Office is needed for interoperability but Salesforce is for internal.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#155

Post by mBVth4DiupvBPY4 »

tdeck wrote: post #62
metadat wrote: post #2

Pretty simple root cause: Bureaucracy combined with lack of shared vision. I support your need to vent, it's undisputably a magnificently huge pile of stinky garbage. Given the amount of resources poured in, it'd be hard to do worse.

What's particularly sad is that they're just cloning an existing thing. The "vision" need be nothing more than "see this, make something exactly like it that works". Google made similar mistakes with Google Chat but thankfully nobody uses that.

Nah, Google's mistakes with Chat are myriad but the biggest one is that they didn't make Slack. They added like one feature on top of Hangouts (threaded group chats), completely redesigned the entire interface (and the Gmail and Meet interfaces while they were at it), changed a bunch of words to make it seem like they copied Slack, and then said "enjoy using this new turd we pushed out".

(Okay, they also added a tiny bit of Markdown-based text formatting. Because why not use the least intuitive, most complicated possible solution, and then not document half of it.)

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#156

Post by akira2501 »

_jezell_ wrote: post #144

Because it is a GUI mashup built on top of a dozen dated, crappy, products that don't work well alone or together, and strung together with fishing wire and duck tape. The fact that it even runs at all is an accomplishment.

"Is that a Teams Channel or a Exchange Distribution list?"

"Yes!"

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#158

Post by barnabee »

Maarten88 wrote: post #85

Long ago Microsoft had MSN Messenger, which was one of the leading messaging apps. It worked well, and many 'normal' users were using it. Then Microsoft dissolved the team behind it and screwed up the product so bad with bloatware and ads that everyone moved to WhatsApp (except in the US where people went back to texting). Then Microsoft came out with Communicator, renamed it to Lync, which was a corporate messenger/…

They also bought (and ruined) MindAlign which had originally been developed and spun off from UBS investment bank and was light years ahead of its time.

What they turned it into / replaced it with was such a depressing step backwards.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#159

Post by fomine3 »

at_a_remove wrote: post #124

I can only throw out a series of ideas: 1) It's built on top of Sharepoint ... somehow . 2) It is a "Me, too" product without any kind of compelling vision, which usually leads to a mentality of "survey existing competitors in that 'space' and nab their features." 3) Because it is free, they feel the need to push it everywhere, even if isn't appropriate for most people. Go to your File Explorer and stare at that "3D…

MS Paint is useful without a printer, so maybe 3D Paint will be become too...

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#160

Post by mBVth4DiupvBPY4 »

1) Bundling

2) Network effects

and 3) Who else is doing something different? No one cares about the quality of the product they make anymore. The only thing that's important is pushing new features. Fixing old features is useless because by the time someone finds out the feature they chose you for doesn't work, they've already paid you for a year long contract. And most of the time, by the time the year rolls around, they're used to dealing with the problem and don't want to take the disruption of moving to something else again.

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