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Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

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Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#631

Post by TheFlyingFish »

Arathorn wrote: post #562
TheFlyingFish wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just out of curiosity: the press releases I've seen about these big government players switching to Matrix generally mention that they're using a customized client of some sort. That's understandable, but what I want to know is: Have they also customized the underlying protocol by which their homeservers communicate? The reason I ask is that it seems to me (as an entirely uneducated outsider) that if they're using th…

Nope, none of them have customised the protocol (at least of the ones we’re aware of and work with). They realise the whole benefit of Matrix is to speak Matrix rather than some mutant thing.

That's awesome, glad to hear it! Sounds like a really positive development for long-term viability.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#632

Post by rchaud »

pbourke wrote: post #549
gwright wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read the details but an earlier message said "70x revenue". It is hard to think of a reason not to sell at that multiple.

Slack is valued higher than Kroger, which runs 2,700+ grocery stores in the United Stages. Apple and Sweden have about the same valuation right now. Apple is worth 30% more than Saudi Arabia.

This is why I invest in index funds only and never look at individual stocks. It wasn't even 15 years ago in college that I was taught that fundamental analysis and buy-and-hold value-based investing was the way to go for individual investors. The 'discipline of the market' will force companies to improve their fundamentals and by extension, their profitability over time.

That advice seems laughable now, even if you hold for years. Companies are going public while nowhere near profitability. And others are experiencing surging prices on the basis of hype and rosy promises about the future. You can say "that's just tech companies", but it's not 1999 anymore. 'Tech' is not a new and mysterious industry with made-up metrics, they make up the largest companies in our economy.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#633

Post by 0xffff2 »

ryanSrich wrote: post #513
J5892 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they fuck up Slack, everyone will move to MS Teams. That is, unless some start-up dreams up some kind of revolutionary paradigm shift in how people communicate online. Maybe something in the AR space ~10 years from now.

What about Mac users though? I can’t imagine using a Microsoft product in any capacity that isn’t entirely separate from Microsoft - meaning GitHub and VSCode. Teams feels entirely too tied to MSFT. The UI seems unbearable.

I use Teams on my Linux workstation every day, entirely through the web site running in Chrome (organization-specific IT peculiarities prevent the "native" app from working on our Linux). It works just as well as Slack ever has for me. There are plenty of Mac users in my org too, but I don't know if they use an app or the web site.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#634

Post by eecks »

rchaud wrote: post #632
pbourke wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slack is valued higher than Kroger, which runs 2,700+ grocery stores in the United Stages. Apple and Sweden have about the same valuation right now. Apple is worth 30% more than Saudi Arabia.

This is why I invest in index funds only and never look at individual stocks. It wasn't even 15 years ago in college that I was taught that fundamental analysis and buy-and-hold value-based investing was the way to go for individual investors. The 'discipline of the market' will force companies to improve their fundamentals and by extension, their profitability over time. That advice seems laughable now, even if you…

So are you saying it is worth investing in unprofitable companies (at IPO time) because the market will force the company to improve it's profitability going forward?

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#635

Post by WorldMaker »

jsnell wrote: post #420
WorldMaker wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it? It's not a good comparison. All of those are brand names for a product still offered with continuity of teams between them and while some of the brand names signaled breaks in compatibility for developers using the services, it was still ostensibly the same product. Whereas most of these Google projects were ostensibly entirely different teams with different project goals building externally similar projects…

So for a 1:1 comparison, let's consider the apps that MS has made in this space over the years. Ignoring the semi-annual rebrands and the MS chat products that were killed from before Google even existed (there's surprisingly many!), there's at least: 1. MSN Messenger (+ rebrands) 2. Skype 3. NetMeeting 4. Lync (+ rebrands) 5. Yammer 6. Kaizala 7. Teams 8. SharedView 9. Windows Meeting Space 10. Groove 11. Qik I trie…

Skype, Qik, Yammer, and Groove were all acquisitions. (None of Google's messenger churn has the excuse of being an acquisition.)

Yammer is a social network and if Yammer counts for Microsoft as a "chat app" then Google gets to add Buzz, Reader, Orkut, G+, Wave, etc to the list.

Groove wasn't exactly a chat app either. It was more the P2P bastard child of Lotus Notes (or a P2P relative of SharePoint, sort of, in Microsoft terms). Chat was a feature, but it wasn't the emphasis of the app, the emphasis was more on shared workspaces (folders, documents). Some ideas that have resurfaced elsewhere in O365 and even Teams, though not in the P2P way without big cloud internet services that Groove attempted.

Windows Meeting Space was the last rebrand of NetMeeting, apparently. There's also evidence according to Wikipedia that SharedView piggy backed on the Windows Meeting Space codebase and in some ways was a "trial version" of Windows Meeting Space with different internet services backing it and paid for by ads.

Kaizala is in the process of merging into Teams, and the Lync line (last Skype for Business) is considered to have already merged/migrated. (Except for support of on premises installs which still has a few more years on the clock. Another contrast to Google who has never supported on premises installs, much less for years after the projects died/moved on.)

Qik was a Skype off-shoot/relative.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#636

Post by eric_cc »

hackmiester wrote: post #457
easterncalculus wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Message threading would make it better though.

God please no. I would disable this in slack in an instant if I could. I dread the day it becomes available in any other platform I use.

Why? It's a really fantastic feature in my opinion that turns a noisy chat room into more of a focused forum.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#637

Post by derwiki »

navanchauhan wrote: post #621
derwiki wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yelp did until a few years ago

Any reason why they moved away from it?

I don’t have first hand knowledge but I think a bunch of small things (not knowing who someone is by just a username, sending messages after hours when user is offline, etc)

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#638

Post by Miraste »

Axsuul wrote: post #630
Miraste wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a big indication Salesforce will get rid of Slack HR.

Slack will continue to be Slack[1] according to the CEO which doesn't signal a culture change. 1. https://twitter.com/stewart/status/1333901111254675456

Every acquired company always says that, practically verbatim. It's meaningless, the CEO doesn't have a say anymore. Salesforce's designs are the relevant direction now, and they're not telling. Facebook (Telegram, Oculus, Instagram) and IBM (dozens of companies) come to mind as specific examples of acquisitions in which the former CEO insisted that business would continue as usual, only for the management teams to be gutted and the company culture eradicated.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#639

Post by magicalhippo »

syshum wrote: post #627
magicalhippo wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guess I'm using the wrong words. To the left of my user name, next to the minimize/maximize buttons, I can switch (in my mind)... something. I guess tenant is the word, but in my mind that is the team. I see now that what I've always thought of as "channels" is called Teams, no idea how I've overlooked that for over two years but there you go. My point is in Discord I can be on a dozen different servers with differen…

I see, I am not sure how common that is. Most places you only need 1 Tenant unless your are contracting with Multiple companies but even then you would be set up as a Guest on their tenant not have your own independent user name for each tenant you need access to. You are correct that Teams today does not support Multi-Tenancy but that is really not an issue for 99.5% of organizations who would only ever have 1 tenan…

Yeah I guess it's a bit different since we're so heavy into complex integrations with our customers.

Anyway, up until this became an issue, Teams has worked quite well. It does what we need when we need it, so can't complain really.

Re: Salesforce Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Slack

#640

Post by Axsuul »

Miraste wrote: post #638
Axsuul wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slack will continue to be Slack[1] according to the CEO which doesn't signal a culture change. 1. https://twitter.com/stewart/status/1333901111254675456

Every acquired company always says that, practically verbatim. It's meaningless, the CEO doesn't have a say anymore. Salesforce's designs are the relevant direction now, and they're not telling. Facebook (Telegram, Oculus, Instagram) and IBM (dozens of companies) come to mind as specific examples of acquisitions in which the former CEO insisted that business would continue as usual, only for the management teams to b…

Good point (also, don't think you meant to include Telegram in there)
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