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Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

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Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#271

Post by vector_spaces »

emmanueloga_ wrote: post #121

Whatever happened to matrix.org/vector/riot.im/element.io? (side note: most confusing branding ever :-/). Element seemed to be picking up some momentum a few months back. There was recent news that they acquired gitter too [1]. These days I only hear about slack exodus and discord this and discord that, though. If I get it right, from all the group messengers that appeared around 6 years ago, the only one with an ope…

Element / Matrix are great in principle, but it's probably not helping that there are fatal bugs in the iOS app that break core functionality (see [1]). Outside of that, it has major issues with accessibility in general -- user facing documentation is non-existent, for example. Users on my server complain sometimes that they feel they need to have a degree in computer science to do simple things. I feel like Element's complications around branding are a great metaphor for the Matrix ecosystem in general

It's a shame -- I'm hopeful that the situation will be better in the next year or so, but if these issues aren't corrected I can't see how they won't forever be in the shadow of mainstream apps like Slack, who have much stronger sensibilities around UX and accessibility (dark patterns and lack of E2EE notwithstanding).

[1] https://github.com/vector-im/element-ios/issues/3762

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#272

Post by schnevets »

brundolf wrote: post #120
colinmhayes wrote: post #68

I can't possibly see this going well for salesforce. Buying slack for 70x revenue is insane. Their entire market is going to be eaten by teams and google chat, if it hasn't already. Microsoft has such a gigantic advantage when it comes to enterprise productivity software because everyone is already using office. And those that aren't are on g-suite. Slack's recent guidance was horrible too.

Slack's main differentiator up until now was that it wasn't tied up in a tech giant. That meant it had great compatibility with everything, and that it was, as a product, the primary focus of its company (and not just an accessory). I think it could have survived on that alone, but this acquisition throws that entire story in the garbage. Now it'll just be "Teams but worse".

Slack saw the risks of being a "simple, elegant collaboration darling, and tried to pivot into operations and workflows over the past 3 years. I haven't looked into the feature set much, but I think most customers rejected the idea because it seemed robust and "un-Slack-y".

I always thought the lack of adoption in this feature set was a marketing failure of Slack, but I'm now seeing it as bait for a Salesforce integration.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#274

Post by lostcolony »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #106
ForHackernews wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low-code/no-code is a very compelling pitch to businesses that see software as cost center.

It's a compelling pitch, but when it comes to actually using low code/no code solutions... well, it's a conversation that we re-visit every few years for a reason. Everyone needs last-mile customization that requires coding and therefore some technical ability.

Once a company realizes that it's not magical unicorns, they're too deeply embedded.

Is it better to spend X every year to just make the Salesforce solution work (thereby not having to admit to a mistake, and mitigating personal risk), or spend 3X in one year to write something in house (that requires maybe 1/10th X to maintain/extend from then on, but which is riskier, and unlikely to show up on future evals such that they can claim credit and get a raise)?

Corporations seem especially vulnerable to sunk cost fallacies.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#275

Post by m463 »

ivraatiems wrote: post #41

Well, Slack, it was nice knowing you. I wonder who Discord will get bought up by when it replaces Slack after a year or two of Salesforce mismanagement? It's so sad that this is the cycle for software now. Start small, get big fast, get sold, get ruined. I realize I am presupposing Salesforce will ruin Slack - but it's hard to see how they won't , unless they take the approach Microsoft took with Github and keep it a…

> I realize I am presupposing Salesforce will ruin Slack

It's statistically likely to happen.

It's interesting to read through lists like this and see what happened:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Electr...

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#276

Post by ebg13 »

abalashov wrote: post #267

For me the fascinating headline here is the 86% gross margins. FY2020 gross revenue at Slack was $630.4m, GAAP gross profit $533.2m [1]. SaaS apps are comically, stupidly profitable at scale. That's educational. [1] https://slack.com/blog/news/slack-announces-fourth-quarter-a...

Except they had net income of -$570M (that's a minus sign in front) because their operational losses are staggeringly high.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#277

Post by CharlesW »

mike_d wrote: post #187
CharlesW wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in my experience, at least in the relatively-rare occasions where exceptions happen. I had an order which Amazon claimed to have been delivered but wasn't, and it took several days and multiple interactions to resolve. Just figuring out a way to talk to a human felt like an ARG.

The take away is that your issue was resolved. While it might not have been a satisfactory experience, you received resolution. If your issue was with your Gmail account or Facebook, you'd still be streaming into the void.

The question was whether Amazon has "relatively good customer support for retail", which it doesn't in my experience.

If we move the goalpost to "have I been able to resolve problems", then yes — after 30 minutes of research into how to hack Amazon customer support in order to talk with a human, followed by multiple phone and chat interactions with generous on-hold time, I can share that Amazon support for retail technically exists and is excellent except when compared to 95% of other customer support experience I've ever had.

> If your issue was with your Gmail account or Facebook, you'd still be streaming into the void.

Ooof, I believe you. I'm Facebook-free, but maybe it's time to start looking for another email provider.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#278

Post by colinmhayes »

jasonv wrote: post #222
thallium205 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one that is built into every GSuite/Workspace account. For free. Google Chat.

The mobile Google Chat still doesn't let you switch accounts, like Hangouts supports. Perplexing, given how much people in the Google-sphere context switch.

Chat is now built into the gmail app which is much easier to switch on.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#279

Post by djsumdog »

CharlesW wrote: post #186
blackrock wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Teams suck. Google Chat? What’s that? I’ll stick with Slack.

Unpopular HN opinion: Teams doesn't suck. It's not as pretty/lovable as Slack, but it has an additional level of organization (each team gets their own set of channels), you can add tabs of related apps/sites to each channel, etc. As far as I could tell having used both simultaneously for a few years, Teams is a complete superset of Slack.

The way rooms is organized is really annoying. It's not just a straight list of chatrooms like ... every other chat app on the planet. The rooms also show what appears to be IMs for group chats (the style/UI) instead of a chatroom.

The calendar integration is nice and the video chats are good, but The Linux version of their client just stops pulling audio all the time unless I do a `killall -9 pulseaudio` and restart it (and it's the only app left where I still have to do that).

Teams gets a big "Meh" for me on calls and awful for text chat.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#280

Post by alangibson »

filoleg wrote: post #53
easton wrote: post #14

I'm somewhat surprised that Amazon didn't end up acquiring Slack, considering that the major thing they are missing compared to Microsoft is productivity tools. If they had purchased Dropbox and Slack they could've gotten a foothold rather quickly and slowed down one of Microsoft's major selling points (you already use Office, why not Azure?). Discord could be another interesting company in the chat space, as I'm sur…

>Yes, I know Chime exists. But I don't think I've ever heard of anyone using it, and Slack is still rather popular. I think even Amazon realized how awful Chime is, given that they, as a company, switched to Slack just a few months ago.

Chime has the best noise canceling of any service I've used. On the other hand, I've only ever used it to talk to Amazon employees at their request. That says a lot about adoption.
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