Why Microsoft Wants Discord • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#41

Post by notsureaboutpg » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 4:59 PM UTC

jariel wrote: post #14

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #2

Discord is capable of organic growth. Teams isn't.

They are not very related categories. People use slack because they liked it and convinced their managers. MSFT has direct access to every single CTO/CIO in the world. They have a sales pipe into most of them along with a bunch of other products. 'Teams' is on paper, the Slack equivalent that rolls in along with the other products and will likely be preferred by Managers. I believe that Discord has 1) more resonance…

Those are really good points, especially the latter one

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#42

Post by syspec » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

Aerroon wrote: post #35

ChrisRR wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unlikely. I suspect many people start businesses with the intention of doing what they love and making a decent living out of it. Then the bigger the company gets, the further removed you are from your original dream and when someone waves a big pile of money in your face, it's a very tempting offer

Another factor is that you may believe the larger company can take the idea you are passionate about further.

In practice they /usually/ take it right where you left it, and leave it there forever

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#43

Post by goalieca » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

Spivak wrote: post #36

causalmodels wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example #1: Teams is currently eating Slack.

Yep. It's not enough to have a better product when Teams comes "free" for a lot of orgs.

I don’t know at which point slack is better. We use both and I find teams annoying and weird but I prefer it because it is less distracting than slack. In some ways slack feels designed to keep my attention and stay engaged.

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#44

Post by 908B64B197 » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

sho_hn wrote: post #37

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'd love to see a few smaller software companies refuse to get bought up and instead cultivate an independent mindset. Didn't Oakley sunglasses try something similar when Luxottica first tried to buy them and then Luxottica managed to ruin them and ended up buying them much cheaper? And hasn't Microsoft already done the same to a large number of startups?

> And hasn't Microsoft already done the same to a large number of startups? Not just startups. They tried to acquire Nokia's handset business and initially failed. Stephen Elop (ex-MS) was installed as new CEO via investor pressure, Nokia abandoned their promising Linux-based phones and changed direction to Windows Mobile and then it was acquired after all. And failed. Elop has, of course, denied having been a trojan…

> Nokia abandoned their promising Linux-based phones

"Promising" is an interesting choice of words here.

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#45

Post by sitzkrieg » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

syspec wrote: post #42

Aerroon wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another factor is that you may believe the larger company can take the idea you are passionate about further.

In practice they /usually/ take it right where you left it, and leave it there forever

or worse, at as common: make it worse in every way

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#46

Post by bluefirebrand » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

ogre_codes wrote: post #29

gautamcgoel wrote: post #5

Is seems to me the top five software companies are on a never-ending quest to buy up every other promising software company. GitHub, Twitch, Mojang, Instagram, WhatsApp... I'd love to see a few smaller software companies refuse to get bought up and instead cultivate an independent mindset. Otherwise, we end up with a world completely dominated by Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook.

Mostly Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. Amazon is far more likely to partner with a company than clone it’s products. Apple acquires mostly smaller companies, often things you’ve never heard of. Also worth noting, many of these smaller companies plan on getting acquired. That is their cash-out. In particular the ones which accept VC money are under tremendous pressure to cash out in one of these deals. I also would p…

> Amazon is far more likely to partner with a company than clone it’s products

Like their notable partnership with Netflix!

Oh wait no, I meant their obviously built to compete with Netflix Amazon Prime Video service.

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#47

Post by michaelbuckbee » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

jehlakj wrote: post #38

I’ve always been curious about this. If they sell it, could they just cash out everything and walk away and start a new project? It can’t be as simple as that right?

Typically acquisitions come with a lot of legal "handcuffs" around what the acquired company is allowed to say in public, how long they'll need to work at the new company, etc.

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#48

Post by bluecalm » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

All the talk is about community, mainly related to gaming. I think there is more to Discord: it's a great platform for programming projects. There are quite a few there already and with a few more developer friendly features it may just snowball. It's a great addition to GitHub for discussing functionality, posting tests, ideas, protect related news or even loose chat.

You can combine developers, users, fans having access to the same community (with some channels being exclusive for a given group and other being public). There might be a technical discussion about implementing a given feature or optimizing part of the code in one channel and related YouTube videos in a media related channel. Two examples are Leela Zero and Leela Chess Zero projects. Check them out, it's something you will never get on a platform like GitHub.

There is nothing like that anywhere else. It's very unique experience you will never get on GitHub, Slack or anywhere else.

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#49

Post by bluefirebrand » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 5:06 PM UTC

throwaway123x2 wrote: post #25

pityJuke wrote: post #3

I wonder whether Microsoft would try and tie Discord accounts to Microsoft accounts. I think it'd be a bad call, as unlike Mojang (to be fair, it took years for Microsoft to actually migrate them), Discord does have a proper accounts infrastructure built up, one which is used as an authentication service of its own. Easier integration and auto signup with MSFT accounts, sure, but I think it would be a mistake to do a…

That would be a nightmare. It currently takes anywhere between 2 and 5 redirects to log into one of my MSFT accounts.

Don't forget the password reset.

Re: Why Microsoft Wants Discord

#50

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Mar 26, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

Leary wrote: post #40

jtew396 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the smaller companies don't have a choice. Many acquisitions from Big Tech come with a threat - sell your company or we will move into your space and tank your valuation.

discord is too big to be killed this easily. any msft copycat will be like facebook trying to kill snapchat

[deleted]