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Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead

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Re: Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead

#181

Post by pmlnr »

gregmac wrote: post #142
yeukhon wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC is my favorite, but IRC is bad for company, because you have to manage your own IRC server (you don't want to host your company stuff on freenode, do you). Also, IRC doesn't come with any integration with third party tools. Unless you have a very willing hacker willing to build the integration from scratch, IRC is bad. Not that you would never find a use case to write custom bot on Slack for your need, but I imag…

IRC is also bad because it is too client-side. There is no history: if you're not connected or not in the room, you miss all the messages there. IRC Cloud and similar things half-solve this problem in the ideal situation (eg: nothing fails, such as IRC Cloud connecting to the IRC server), but they are a kludge on top of what is really an inadequate protocol if you want to compare to Slack/Hipchat/etc. Frequently we w…

ZNC. I was seriously thinking of setting up ZNC as service.

Re: Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead

#182

Post by pmlnr »

avtar wrote: post #178
vpkaihla wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's far more than web-based IRC How exactly?

Mobile clients, persistent chat history when switching clients/devices, search, @mentions notify you when you're away from your desk, and easy integrations with lots of services. P.S. I mainly use IRC everyday :)

Which is IRC + ZNC + Andchat + bots...

Re: Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead

#183

Post by pmlnr »

Zekio wrote: post #136
Phlarp wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"route everything through government surveillance" is perhaps a bit too blunt, but let's not forget that Microsoft was the founding member of the PRISM program. And Prism or no Prism-- Skype was a $1bn present from Microsoft to the intelligence community. Even if they never snooped on anything (we know they have) they did re-engineer skype in a manner that allows it to be subject to more traditional CALEA trap and tr…

Isn't skype still P2P?? otherwise why would it have an option to disallow P2P between you and people you don't know?

http://www.zdnet.com/article/skype-ditched-peer-to-peer-supe...

Re: Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead

#184

Post by yulaow »

kough wrote: post #152
Negative1 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Unless Microsoft rebuilds Skype for the ground up" This. This exactly. Is it really unbelievable to assume Microsoft wouldn't attempt to build their own IRC+ clone and save a few billion while they are at it? I do agree with you, Slack is much better than Skype, but I would add that Lync is just as good. I went from Lync to Slack (after changing jobs) and I would say that Lync not only works just as well but has mor…

When I was forced to use Lync (due to an acquisition) in 2014 it was absolutely fucking terrible. The OS X client failed to report online status correctly, couldn't participate in most group chats or video or audio calls, and crashed regularly. Also weirdly non-native UI. And, no linux client to speak of - for a startup like the one I worked for where many devs used linux, that was a nonstarter. Has the story improve…

You should see how much even people inside microsoft hate Lync.

Re: Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead

#185

Post by pmlnr »

bluedino wrote: post #47
pmlnr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IRC is still alive ;)

It's just a protocol. Like HTTP, FTP... It's not a client. It's not one companies servers. It's not anything like AOL IM, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, PowWow...

And that is exactly why it's still alive.

Re: Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead

#186

Post by wiremine »

cdnsteve wrote: post #93

We initially used Skype on our team to communicate with others. However, the software was horribly buggy on OSX. Slack has become part of our main toolchain. It works, has the basic features you need and doesn't get in our way. The integrations are great and we'll continue to use them. Unless Microsoft rebuilds Skype for the ground up, I don't see us leaving Slack for it. They had their chance, and they dropped the b…

I think the have the opportunity, but they are very late to the game.

I used Skype for 6 years for work related stuff, and it wasn't great in terms of chat. Slack is WORLDS better. But Skype works GREAT for my interactions with family. The use cases are extremely different.

My preference would be to keep the current Skype as-is, or maybe even simplify it, and also add a new "Skype For Teams" product.

Re: Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead

#188

Post by vehementi »

sergiotapia wrote: post #169

I wonder why Discord isn't more popular, it's basically Slack with voice chat baked in that works really well. All of your favorite Slack shortcuts work exactly the same. Even pressing the Up arrow key to edit your last message. I guess the 'gamer' branding hurts it's potential use in the workplace.

Yeah it's heavily gamer focused. Not that it coulnd't be used for business.

Slack is a lot more featureful though and you can do cool integrations.

Discord has no search ability.

Discord is also conspicuously free and I think everyone's waiting to see if they implode or not.

I love Discord.

Re: Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead

#189

Post by brenschluss »

dave2000 wrote: post #148
lmm wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly Slack's success is the utter failure of every alternative on the UX side. MSN messenger was perhaps wrong-footed by the shift to multi-device, but none of the other tools have such an excuse. It's not a generational thing, it's an incredible level of, there's no other word, incompetence on the part of the makers of major messaging software (Skype in particular).

MSN had big flashing ads. When I first saw that I assumed I was dealing with another windows install with malware on it. I've paid for the OS, why have I got this freemium crap? Slack has no way of letting me know who's read the messages. Come on, it's 2016. I asked them about this and they told me the only solution is it get each contact to add a sunglasses icon as they read each message! What a joke.

What does 'read' in a Slack context mean, though? If you scroll past it quickly, is it read? If you accidentally open your Slack window, is it read? A 'read' notification would just be a misleading user experience.

Re: Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead

#190

Post by toyg »

phren0logy wrote: post #143
atmosx wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a different experience. It was bad before MS came in and got way worst after - except the icon. The icon now is way more slick! But that won't cut it... Plus, I would never use it professionally since Skype (and MS in general) are the extreme low in regards to privacy.

Now that Skype is under the Office license (and hence must be secure enough to meet HIPAA/HITEC) hopefully the security issues improve dramatically.

Are you sure you're not mixing up Skype, which is just the traditional voip network, and "Skype for business" (aka Lync) which is part of Office but a very different product?
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