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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?

#461

Post by Jaruzel »

barnabee wrote: post #158
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/…

They also bought (and ruined) MindAlign which had originally been developed and spun off from UBS investment bank and was light years ahead of its time. What they turned it into / replaced it with was such a depressing step backwards.

Yup, MindAlign was born out of an internal product in UBS called 'Interchange'.

Interchange was a java client, that fundamentally spoke standard IRC to IRC servers, but also used extra external databases to auto-connect users to channels and secure sensitive channels. The client also forced real names (via Active Directory), and was hardcoded to only connect to the UBS IRC servers.

The IRC servers themselves were altered to only allow Interchange clients to connect[1] and to only allow approved bots in channels most of which did full chat logging for compliance purposes.

Interchange was so slow it was nicknamed 'Interchug'.

The IRC server network spanned the UBS WAN network globally, and all staff were encouraged to use it. For the era, no other large banking corporate had anything similar running (officially).

Source: I worked in UBS IT during this period.

---

[1] Although the more enterprising of us just HEX edited mIRC to report the Interchange client name.

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

#462

Post by Daub »

DocTomoe wrote: post #372
Daub wrote: post #119

I teach visual effects and digital art. I am used to the madly compLex interfaces (Maya, Blender, Nuke etc). I have no fear of such software. But I am completely defeated by Teams. - Why two windows when you are in a meeting? The second window is sometimes hard to find intuitively. - Why, when opening an attachment, is the user locked out of chat? Again, with many windows open, the preview can look and function like…

> - Why two windows when you are in a meeting? The second window is sometimes hard to find intuitively. Seriously, that is a godsend if you are presenting a lot and have a two+ monitor setup - have the presentation up on one, still see your participants on the other one. > - Upload a file to chat and sending that file are two separate actions. Why? I can’t count the number of times I have to remind students to press…

> - Seriously, that is a godsend if you are presenting a lot and have a two+ monitor setup - have the presentation up on one, still see your participants on the other one.

For me, apps that spit out windows became a PITA when you have many apps open (which I always do).

Two screen benefit can be had from following the lead of an app like Resolve, which has a built-in two-screen feature.

Why not use tabs to accommodate the two functions? Or some other widget? Currently, it honestly feels like two apps stuck together. The fact that, when previewing a file, the chat window visually presents exactly as Word, Excell or whatever does not help.

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

#463

Post by rwalle »

roydivision wrote: post #379

My 2 cents of venting on this sorry excuse of software - Backtick formatting in a chat post only works after typing the closing backtick, deleting it, re-typing it - Text copied from a conversation is polluted with names and time stamps. "I really want this feature" said nobody ever - The mute/unmute button is hard to find, I don't think I've ever attended a Teams meeting without someone struggling with this. Teams s…

My favorite one is that when someone "likes" or use whatever "emotion" on your message, even if you are currently taking to the person, you need to click "activity" page in order to clear that notification and then come back

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

#465

Post by prmoustache »

navane wrote: post #388
shadowofneptune wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't people use it elsewhere? I know that WhatsApp is dominant, but why?

where i live (western europe), the telco's overcharged for sms, making a decent conversation costs euros each. Whatsapp + wifi is free. I heard that originally sms wasn't meant to be a consumer product, it was just so technicians could test or communicate. Then the telco's realized people like texting more than calling (people prefer async sometimes, weird because comms mainly developed from async to sync), and decid…

In reality it is more async than texting that please people because nowadays most people use whatsapp as a walkie-talkie over internet.

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

#466

Post by Jaruzel »

Duber wrote: post #426

And don't forget about multi-tenant support. If you have multiple accounts or your account has access to multiple tenants, you can only really work in one of them at a time. You have to log out and log in to each of them. Totally unusable. Slack got this well from day zero. I can't understand how 6 years later MS Teams still doesn't support well this simple and common scenario.

Inline external teams (from other tenants) has been in beta for a while now - last time I heard, they kept having issues with the security model.

At the very least, MS should let us run multiple copies of Teams, one for each tenant. The only way around it right now, is to have the desktop client open and then the web client for a different tenant.

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

#467

Post by m4lvin »

jesprenj wrote: post #456

Our gymnasium extensively uses Microsoft products - Outlook, Windows, Office, ASP.NET. We've had some proprietary software before for writing on digital touchscreen displays in classrooms, but it was ditched in favour of OneNote. Now some professors prefer to use the classic whiteboard with the regular marker due to very usual malfunctioning of the software, sudden crashes, freezes, VERY SLOW undoing times, etc. It's…

This!

Another example: In Germany (or maybe whenever the system language is German) Microsoft decided that everyone should have a ferris wheel and a brezel in their task bar because now it is Oktoberfest in Munich. Seriously? I think we have reached spam-as-an-operating-system.

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

#468

Post by Jaruzel »

guidedlight wrote: post #14

I suggest you try the web app version, it’s faster and more stable. In fact, I believe Microsoft will replace the desktop client with a web app shell. You can try it out today; 1. Install the Microsoft Edge Web browser on Mac or Windows 2. Log into https://teams.microsoft.com 3. Click … > Apps > Install this site as an app 4. Enjoy!

For Chrome:

  chrome.exe --app=https://teams.microsoft.com
you can also add these two for an isolated copy of each Teams instance:

  --profile-directory=
  --user-data-dir=

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

#469

Post by leetnewb »

Woeps wrote: post #393
bluGill wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communication software needs to run in case someone wants to contact you. It should start in the background though.

Wait wüt.... Regardless of software, I decide when I'm available to be contacted... not somebody else. I already mute all notifications/ringtones on the phone when I want to focus, why should we also start doing this on computers?

Optimist view: Teams replaces desk phones at some (many?) companies. Relying on the average user to open an application to be able to receive phone calls is asking a lot, and is potentially ripe for abuse.

Pessimist view: Companies gain the ability to covertly track presence, which isn't feasible if Teams is left to the user to open.

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

#470

Post by adwww »

hooby wrote: post #341

- MSN Messenger - Windows Live Messenger - Microsoft Office Communications - Microsoft V-Chat - Microsoft Lync - Skype - Skype for Business (completely different piece of software than skype) - Microsoft Classroom - Microsoft Teams (no guarantee of completeness) Some of these did better than others, but in the end they all went down the drain. That makes me suspect that it's not the software itself, but some corporat…

In fairness the Google list looks similar.

- Hangouts - Wave - Plus - Duo - Meet - Chat

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