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Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

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Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#141

Post by krapp »

rchaud wrote: post #139
delecti wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "military–industrial complex" is the typical term.

It is, but despite it being coined by a former US President and WW2 Allied General, it is now taken to mean something akin to "defund the military".

Eisenhower wasn't exactly praising it when he coined the term, and the military and military-industrial-complex are different things. You can support one but not the other, although most people who use it in conversation tend to be against both, since it's implicitly pejorative.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#142

Post by rchaud »

cgb223 wrote: post #47

From a financial point of view the answer is because you’re not paying for it Teams is bundled with Office 365 to steal marketshare from other companies like Discord who charge a bit more and are a stand alone service. It’s why Salesforce bought Slack. CFOs at Fortune 500 companies want to be efficient with their spending so they won’t buy an extra license if their existing bundle is “good enough” Teams is “good enou…

Nobody considering Office 365 is thinking of Discord as a Plan B.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#145

Post by mBVth4DiupvBPY4 »

drewcoo wrote: post #133
Maarten88 wrote: post #85

Long ago Microsoft had MSN Messenger, which was one of the leading messaging apps. It worked well, and many 'normal' users were using it. Then Microsoft dissolved the team behind it and screwed up the product so bad with bloatware and ads that everyone moved to WhatsApp (except in the US where people went back to texting). Then Microsoft came out with Communicator, renamed it to Lync, which was a corporate messenger/…

Microsoft had several different non-interoperable message apps, including two named "Messenger." Those golden days didn't look so shiny when we were there. Luckily, there was Pidgin/Adium, so we could have one app to talk all the protocols.

I'm not sure what you're referring to with two non-interoperable message apps named Messenger? There was MSN Messenger/.NET Messenger/Windows Messenger/Windows Live Messenger, but those were interoperable (they were the same thing, just updates). They also managed to wrangle compatibility with Yahoo Messenger (although by then no one I knew still used Yahoo), and apparently Facebook Messenger, and then did a crappy merger/migration to Skype.

I'd go back to those days in a heartbeat, and I was there.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#146

Post by nwallin »

deanebarker wrote: post #25
holografix wrote: post #21

Everyone saying teams is garbage. It’s not. It’s like you’re complaining about the kid who got a C in class. Guess what? They passed the exam. Microsoft brutalised Slack with a C grade app that was “bundled for free”. For 80% of people, teams is just fine.

Agreed. I use both apps simultaneously (I have them both open right now). Admittedly, Teams uses a lot more RAM, but I have a lot of RAM. I would never know this unless I checked it.

It's kinda ridiculous though. My work PC has 16GB of RAM and I periodically hit issues with heavy swapping and routinely causes my computer to BSOD or freeze irrecoverably. Obviously it's not just Teams and its 1.2GB of usage, but it's a significant contributor. (glass house disclaimer: the application I develop uses a ton of RAM, especially with a debug build)

Meanwhile I bought a personal computer for myself with none of my work stuff on it, and I got one with 4GB of RAM because for me that's plenty.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#147

Post by mBVth4DiupvBPY4 »

hangonhn wrote: post #72

Because it doesn't need to improve. It just needs to check some checkboxes. It's "free" as part of Microsoft Office 365. It allows the IT department to check a checkbox and de-incentivize them from looking at Slack. With Slack you have to pay for and is yet another app to administer. Many IT departments who are already Microsoft customers will have an easier time rolling that out than a new app. No new purchase order…

It's actually not free as part of all Office 365 plans, sadly. We discovered recently that we'd either have to downgrade(!!!) to the version with only web apps, or upgrade to the version with Exchange, to get teams. (Or, better yet, pay for a Teams-specific license since it's $0.25 cheaper than getting Exchange...)

Of course, the whole reason that we were looking at it is that one vendor who says they prefer Teams for some reason, even though we already pay for both Google Meet and Zoom.

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#149

Post by mBVth4DiupvBPY4 »

pxc wrote: post #59
analog31 wrote: post #30

It's the iPhone effect: If you use Teams, and something goes wrong, everybody is patient and sympathetic. If you use something else, then it's your fault for being "weird" or "cheap." In my case, my computer came from IT, pre-loaded with Teams, and it runs nearly flawlessly. But I've noticed something else about computers and software. You can have two people with similar jobs, similar computers, similar software, et…

> You can have two people with similar jobs, similar computers, similar software, etc. One person will have crashes and problems all the time, and the other person, smooth sailing. Nobody knows why. Imo this is just a result of the chaotic, unreproducible install processes typical for proprietary software and a hesitancy to do root cause analysis on a workstation when you have time pressures to focus on other things.…

It's also a lot tougher to do a root cause analysis when there's no source, fifty layers of framework, and anemic documentation.

Which applies to nearly 100% of modern software. (Including Linux distros and a lot of their required software, other than the source bit...)

Re: Ask HN: Why is Microsoft Teams still so bad?

#150

Post by nwallin »

bluedino wrote: post #36

Can't even copy and paste code etc What a joke.

Three backticks then a space. Then paste the code. then hit enter 4-5 times until it sends it.

I don't know where I learned this eldritch incantation--it certainly wasn't in the documentation--but it works.

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