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Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

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Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#101

Post by simula67 »

pyrale wrote: post #54
veave wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"massive ad campaigns" is hardly an antitrust matter. Chrome ate Firefox and IE back in the day because it was monumentally better, technologically speaking.

> Chrome ate Firefox and IE back in the day because it was monumentally better, technologically speaking. The difference between Firefox and IE was orders of magnitude larger than the difference between Chrome and Firefox. The explosive growth from Chrome can't be explained just by it being better than competition, or Firefox would have replaced IE in 6 months earlier. The real explanation is that Chrome benefited fr…

> The difference between Firefox and IE was orders of magnitude larger than the difference between Chrome and Firefox

I don't think so. When Chrome came out it was much better than competition too[1]. I don't know if Firefox was that much better than Internet Explorer.

It is also possible that Chrome rode the wave of Firefox i.e, Firefox got people thinking about improved browsing experience by switching from Internet Explorer. Then Chrome came along and picked up many new users who may have otherwise gotten picked up by Firefox.

[1] https://youtu.be/LRmrMiOWdfc

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#102

Post by seszett »

withinboredom wrote: post #44
seszett wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Slack filed a complaint with the EU in 2020, claiming that Microsoft was "force installing [Teams] for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers." I'm pretty sure force installing even more software and blocking removal isn't what they are going for.

Yes. Let me introduce you to a Mac. Where the messaging software comes preinstalled and you can’t remove it.

Well I never said Apple was better, and in fact I think there have been a number of antitrust charges against Apple as well, maybe not directly related to "messaging software" but at least one of them was about opening iMessage to interoperability as far as I remember.

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#103

Post by Quarrelsome »

pyrale wrote: post #54
veave wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"massive ad campaigns" is hardly an antitrust matter. Chrome ate Firefox and IE back in the day because it was monumentally better, technologically speaking.

> Chrome ate Firefox and IE back in the day because it was monumentally better, technologically speaking. The difference between Firefox and IE was orders of magnitude larger than the difference between Chrome and Firefox. The explosive growth from Chrome can't be explained just by it being better than competition, or Firefox would have replaced IE in 6 months earlier. The real explanation is that Chrome benefited fr…

I think you're forgetting some of the key benefits:

* auto-updates when firefox was still: HELLO WEDNESDAY'S VERSION HAS DROPPED WOULD U LIKE TO DOWNLOAD IT?

* tabs were isolated per process where an entire Firefox session could still get taken down by one tab not responding

* That super sexy tab handling code where the resizing happened when you clicked away meaning you could close multiple tabs by simply clicking a lot (which you couldn't in Firefox because it was resizing them all the time).

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#104

Post by nineteen999 »

Shrezzing wrote: post #57
_cenw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saw the same pattern with 3 employers over the past 5 years. One killed Slack and all institutional knowledge in its search engine within a month. One replaced all remaining Intel Macs (not an insignificant amount) because Teams would being them to a standstill. The last one is currently happening and I'm wondering what unexpected cost will come to haunt this decision this time. Though one thing that always suffers i…

I think Slack really dropped the ball in 2020, and that's ultimately why the inferior Teams and Zoom platforms have been able to solidify their market shares, and Discord was able to bastardise some of Slack's old market share. It took Slack nearly 2 years after the pandemic started to introduce features like Huddles - by which point, everyone who needed video conferencing software (which was basically every white-co…

> By mid-April was in a usable state.

Do you mean April 2024 or 2025? Because the Teams I use on a regular daily basis is still unusable garbage. Granted it's better than February 2020, but it's still a train wreck of chats that don't work, calls dropped often, and files that won't attach to messages. Not that I am all that fond of Slack either.

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#105

Post by yomlica8 »

kevingadd wrote: post #68
Rarebox wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back then I remember switching to Chrome for these reasons: 1. Feeling faster than firefox (still does) 2. Process separation for tabs. Firefox used to crash the whole browser, whereas chrome would crash just a single tab. 3. Shipped with support for Flash and PDFs

It's funny how massive the impact of "bundle a bunch of proprietary stuff into our open browser" was on the browser wars. Between H264, MP3, Flash and PDF, Firefox never had a chance.

I can't remember firefox ever being included in installers for flash updates, antivirus, etc with install by default checked either.

Perhaps Chrome did succeed mostly on its own merits, but it wasn't above techniques used by things like Bonzai Buddy and Ask Toolbar to get the job done.

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#106

Post by wasmitnetzen »

CSMastermind wrote: post #91
jp_nc wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slack dropped the ball earlier than that on audio/video. They acquired Screenhero in 2015 and did nothing of substance with it. Also, the lack of any real meeting features means that Zoom or Teams always has to be in the picture.

This still makes me mad. Screenhero was the best screensharing software I've used to this day. If anyone here knows the inside story of what went down with that acquisition, please share because I was expecting such great things when I heard Slack got them and then ... just nothing. Was it a tech integration problem? A key team member leaving? Like what happened?

I have no inside knowledge, but that sounds like your regular acquihire to me.

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#107

Post by worrycue »

theonlybutlet wrote: post #43
FullMetalBitch wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking Apple isn't as big in Europe

Yes, their marketshare overall is lower however in certain very large EU countries their market share is very high and their practices shouldn't escape scrutiny as this type of law also applies to smaller players. I suppose it's an issue of allocation of resources for the regulators. Smaller has less impact. The individual country regulators can also address this.

> in certain very large EU countries their market share is very high

And which EU countries are those? I know a few in the 60s% market share range but that would hardly be considered “very high”.

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#108

Post by fingerlocks »

leokennis wrote: post #67
Shrezzing wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Slack really dropped the ball in 2020, and that's ultimately why the inferior Teams and Zoom platforms have been able to solidify their market shares, and Discord was able to bastardise some of Slack's old market share. It took Slack nearly 2 years after the pandemic started to introduce features like Huddles - by which point, everyone who needed video conferencing software (which was basically every white-co…

Also, Teams integrates with the other MS stuff. If I share files in a channel, in the background it is "just" a SharePoint which in turn I can add to my OneDrive. Meaning I can save a file in Word to that SharePoint and everyone in the channel can access it.

How is that any different from sharing a google doc link?

Re: Microsoft faces antitrust scrutiny from the EU over Teams, Office 365

#109

Post by tacticus »

itsoktocry wrote: post #98
mdasen wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but it's hard to argue for another solution because why pay for Slack when we already have Teams "for free"? I definitely understand this argument and I definitely understand how it plays out in the real world. At the same time, it strikes me as one of the ways companies can be foolishly cheap. If a product like Teams is making employees so unhappy, it's definitely worth spending some money to fix that. I've never us…

> I've never used Teams, but I hear so much complaining about it. People will complain about anything, though. The nature of my work has me dealing with all of these platforms, depending on the clients. Guess what? I don't find Slack to be some joyous piece of software to use. It's better than the alternatives, I guess, but not to the point that I really care one way or the other. Some people complain about the bundl…

> that can be really convenient for your organization

Yeah just like the AD bundling with windows was convenient. Up until you had no other choice than retaining an AD if anyone wanted windows anything.

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