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Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

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Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#51

Post by nsommer »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #13

Selling Slack seems like a mistake. It's so ubiquitous. I'd be interested in buying stock in Slack if they IPO. Snapchat was in a similar situation, and four or so years ago when they turned down Zuck's ~$5B offer everyone was saying what a silly mistake it was not to sell. How could Snapchat possibly make money? And think of all the disheartened employees whose shares would've been worth something. Turns out there's…

Concerning Snap, you are right in terms of market cap that generated evan spiegel billions. But don't mix that with profits.

    How could Snapchat possibly make money?
They never did, and they probably never will (they even acknowledge this in their IPO filing).

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#52

Post by TorKlingberg »

maitrik wrote: post #3

Really believe that Microsoft should have bought Slack. It makes perfect sense for them and aligns with their vision to be the productivity center of everyone's workflow. Microsoft doesnt understand this space at all. Look what they are doing to Skype by making it more like Snapchat when their main use case is business related. Teams also feels so unfinished.

Microsoft buying Slack doesn't make sense to me, unless they buy it just to shut it down. MS already has Skype for Business (Lync) which is doing really well in more traditional companies. Their business strategy is all about integrating everything with all the other Microsoft products: Office, Outlook, Windows, Exchange, etc. Slack is completely stand-alone with an open API.

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#53

Post by vertex-four »

taurath wrote: post #26
maitrik wrote: post #3

Really believe that Microsoft should have bought Slack. It makes perfect sense for them and aligns with their vision to be the productivity center of everyone's workflow. Microsoft doesnt understand this space at all. Look what they are doing to Skype by making it more like Snapchat when their main use case is business related. Teams also feels so unfinished.

Skypes main use case isn't business related, and you can tell because they still use freaking Lync on macs

Skype for Business is Lync, and has little to do with Skype proper.

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#54

Post by noway421 »

Grue3 wrote: post #38
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #13

Selling Slack seems like a mistake. It's so ubiquitous. I'd be interested in buying stock in Slack if they IPO. Snapchat was in a similar situation, and four or so years ago when they turned down Zuck's ~$5B offer everyone was saying what a silly mistake it was not to sell. How could Snapchat possibly make money? And think of all the disheartened employees whose shares would've been worth something. Turns out there's…

Except Slack doesn't have any new ideas behind it. It's just another chat app. And just like other popular chat apps of yesteryear, it's a fad that will pass.

IRC was just a chat app, yet even though it didn't age nicely, was still seeing massive usage for professional communication up until lately. Is it only because of legacy? Hardly, new blood was pouring in constantly, the only hit it took was skype.

Slack is simply disrupting this area by offering product which is up to date and doesn't need bouncer running (+ hundreds of other useful nice to have features).

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#55

Post by noway421 »

maitrik wrote: post #3

Really believe that Microsoft should have bought Slack. It makes perfect sense for them and aligns with their vision to be the productivity center of everyone's workflow. Microsoft doesnt understand this space at all. Look what they are doing to Skype by making it more like Snapchat when their main use case is business related. Teams also feels so unfinished.

> Skype by making it more like Snapchat when their main use case is business related Yes! Went downhill straight after the Metro/flat UI change.

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#56

Post by giancarlostoro »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #13

Selling Slack seems like a mistake. It's so ubiquitous. I'd be interested in buying stock in Slack if they IPO. Snapchat was in a similar situation, and four or so years ago when they turned down Zuck's ~$5B offer everyone was saying what a silly mistake it was not to sell. How could Snapchat possibly make money? And think of all the disheartened employees whose shares would've been worth something. Turns out there's…

Unlike Snapchat though people pay for Slack. Not sure how people pay Snapchat directly in comparison. A fun plot twist would be if Snap bought out Slack and became a communications company of sorts. Would be nice to see something different. Also waiting on Apple to buy out other companies to join their fold and become a little more cross-platform.

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#58

Post by Eridrus »

iand675 wrote: post #48
unabst wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord is the better app at this point. Even for business use. But Slack from an acquisition POV must be different. They have revenue, traction, and that all important paying subscriber base. It's like everyone has always said. Slack is just a chat app. It's not about the app, but rather, what they achieved with it. I love discord so much part of me wants Amazon to buy Slack just so it would kill it (or MS or Verizo…

Having not really used Discord, what about it is better to you?

Memory usage is far superior, product is more responsive as a chat system.

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#59

Post by Eridrus »

Steeeve wrote: post #20

The power of slack isn't in their technology, it's in their marketing. There have been a thousand IRC clones. Few have gained any traction at all. I suspect under new management it will falter, but at the same time I also think that it's a terrible idea not to sell if the opportunity arises.

I haven't used Slack in a while, but if they got Search working well, that would be a real differentiator. I've seen them hiring quite a bit on that front too.

Re: Slack Said to Draw Interest from Amazon

#60

Post by asplake »

r00fus wrote: post #25
ejcx wrote: post #23

There isn't a lot here to read in to. I worked at a very small company that was going to be bought by amazon. We were "left at the alter" by amazon. I would be very surprised to see a slack deal go through, knowing what I know about our acquisition process, but they are a little different than we were. If AMazon buys them they have better be sure they can quickly integrate them, unlike twitch that's unique enough to…

There are so many Amazon purchases that just "hang around" for better or for worse: Audible, Goodreads, IMDB... the list is large. I like they don't necessarily have to vertically integrate all their acquisitions.

In some ways, Goodreads suffers for its integration. List a book that's on Leanpub and not Amazon and you're left with an Amazon button that's worse than useless.
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