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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?

#431

Post by jillesvangurp »

obert wrote: post #368

As long as companies keep paying for it, the signal given is “keep going like this”. CIOs’ fault.

CIOs don't care about user happiness but about cost, compliance, security, and general ass-coverage. MS is really good at ticking those boxes for companies. MS Live is included with a lot of other stuff they also need. So, they sign for a site license and then they get to use outlook, office 365, and all the rest of the stuff that companies need (or think they need). It's a package deal, alternative solutions would be redundant relative to that package.

Kudos to Zoom for convincing lots of companies that they need it in addition to that stuff when arguably they really don't. MS has narrowed the feature gap enough that you could do without it. But still, it's fashionable enough that lots of companies pay to use that in addition to MS Live. For most responsible CIOs that's an obvious way to cut cost waiting to happen of course.

I am CTO/CIO/CPO at a small startup. We have so far kept MS, Adobe, and Atlassian out of our door. We use Google Docs, Meets, Github, Figma, Asana, and a few other things instead. So our SAAS bills are lowish and we get a lot of value. Perfectly happy with that setup. And Meets is pretty nice to use as it just runs in a browser without insisting on installing an app that contains a browser that runs a webapp.

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

#432

Post by damiante »

zmmmmm wrote: post #402

Teams doesn't have to be good to succeed. It just has to exist. It's not even very important how good it is. Given it exists, IT will make everyone use it on Microsoft's behalf regardless of how bad it is. Or another way to look at it is that the real customers for Teams are IT departments. It makes their lives easier because they don't have to do anything and it meets all the compliance requirements they are suppose…

It's also upsold as part of existing MS sales agreements which is why execs will buy it. Easier and cheaper than negotiating a new enterprise contract with an unrelated company eg Slack

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

#433

Post by 4ggr0 »

OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #231

On linux, Microsoft teams will change your system sound settings to match its preference. This includes Bluetooth headphones no longer being available to the system. Then, it decides the system settings are beneath it and will only use its own device settings. And it will decide now that your fancy Bluetooth headset is gone, there is also no need for that crappy internal microphone either, so enjoy not having any mic…

The funniest thing on my Linux laptop is that when I check the OS-menu where I can control every Applications volume, MS Teams is diplayed as "Skype"...

I use the official Microsoft Teams Preview for Linux or whatever its called, no idea why they decided to call it Skype in the Application Settings. Can't even really be legacy stuff, as far as I know a Skype for Linux Application never even existed.

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

#435

Post by AndrewVos »

thefz wrote: post #383
AndrewVos wrote: post #357

Most things made by Microsoft are horrific. Just look at Azure. It's because they have a bad culture and developers who could never care about their capitalist hell products. Once your company is stuck into a contract with them it's almost impossible to change, so why do they care about fixing anything.

What's bad about Azure?

So many things. One that is irritating me a lot right now is how complex it is to deploy to an "App Service" and how nothing seems to work.

Also it's incredibly slow.

https://github.com/Azure/webapps-deploy/issues/60

And the fact that we're locked into using it means I have to take my 50 second netlify deploy and migrate it to a 15 minute ADO deploy, losing out on loads of features and gaining none.

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

#436

Post by wslh »

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/…

Don't forget the Microsoft acquisition of Groove Networks [1] which was a prescient, but failed, app in team collaboration with a P2P serverless approach.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groove_Networks?wprov=sfla1

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

#438

Post by mcv »

At my previous job, MS Teams worked perfectly. It was used for everything, and it was great on my work laptop. Yesterday I had a Teams meeting with a teacher from my son's school, and Teams outright refused to work on my private laptop, with no indication why. The app when opened just hung on a white screen (even after reinstalling), and in the browser everything worked, except the camera. (The camera works fine in Discord or Google Meet.)

I have no idea what the problem is here. It works perfectly fine in one situation, and not at all in the other. Both Windows machines.

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

#439

Post by csunbird »

djtango wrote: post #333
phreack wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's hilarious and sad is that MSN Messenger had a lot of features back in the early '00s that major players like WhatsApp and Telegram now only implement through gritted teeth, one every year if you're lucky. Things like custom emojis, audio messages, sending a drawing, avatars you could see, choosing your display name, exportable conversation history, you even had games! Nowadays people cheer for the bare minimum…

Right but WhatsApp solved a very different problem in the beginning - how do I send a message to someone who isn't online right now (or has a flaky connection). THAT was what was needed for mobile devices. I remember trying to use MSN messenger when I was on WAP and it sucked. And then I remember Skype on iPhone sucked for messages too. SMS also wasn't great if you were remotely international and had friends and fami…

For EU, Whatsapp actually solved a different problem, as SMS already existed to send messages to offline people: You could fit tenfold amount of messages to an mobile data subscription to a SMS package that you can get from your mobile data provider. It was so cheap and whatsapp also had more features.

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

#440

Post by imron »

Tofumeat wrote: post #354
imron wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever tried searching for a conversation you had with someone, and you search for something you remember saying, and click ‘go to message’ and rather than take you to the conversation with all the important context you were actually looking for, it just shows that single message on the center of the screen all by itself with no way to see the rest of the conversation? That’s the best.

There actually is a (stupid) workaround: You first pop out the chat into a separate window. Then search for the message in the main window. Now click "go to message", you will jump to the message in the separate chat window, giving you the context.

Thank you. I can’t wait to try this out. In the meantime, I’m at a loss for words…
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