Maybe I am being naive(going to assume I am), and i admittedly have never used HipChat. But could someone explain to me what this offers over say setting up your own XMPP or IRC server and using that?
The cost to setting up and maintaining your own server and emulating many of the more modern HipChat features (drag+drop file sharing, archived/searchable history, mobile push notifications) is not trivial. Most companies find it far cheaper to spend money on a service than roll their own in house (see also: GitHub, UserVoice, hosted WordPress, etc).
Also, nontechnical people are often not very comfortable using IRC/XMPP.
Maybe I am being naive(going to assume I am), and i admittedly have never used HipChat. But could someone explain to me what this offers over say setting up your own XMPP or IRC server and using that?
Among other things, not having to set up your own XMPP or IRC server.
If you can't setup an IRC or XMPP server, then I don't think you should call yourself a software engineer. If you're a scrappy startup, you sure as hell better be able to setup an IRC server. And no... it doesn't take more than an hour to spin up an EC2 instance and setup inspircd as a private server.
Maybe I am being naive(going to assume I am), and i admittedly have never used HipChat. But could someone explain to me what this offers over say setting up your own XMPP or IRC server and using that?
Its fairly stable, desktop and web clients, accessible for non-tech members of the company, decent UI, various API hooks and hubot access, easier and faster to get up and running/ maintain then a home rolled XMPP/IRC. If you just need a functional company chat client, its solid.
Maybe I am being naive(going to assume I am), and i admittedly have never used HipChat. But could someone explain to me what this offers over say setting up your own XMPP or IRC server and using that?
The cost to setting up and maintaining your own server and emulating many of the more modern HipChat features (drag+drop file sharing, archived/searchable history, mobile push notifications) is not trivial. Most companies find it far cheaper to spend money on a service than roll their own in house (see also: GitHub, UserVoice, hosted WordPress, etc). Also, nontechnical people are often not very comfortable using IRC/…
The account manager at my company takes offense to this. Sorry, but even "nontechnical" people have setup mIRC when they were 14.
Hipchat is incredible. Simple, but for our company - it basically is the MAIN form of communication internally. It keeps our team connected in real time, around the world, in the office and on the go. It's a rare day when I get an email from anyone on our team because we're in constant communication via Hipchat all day, every day. Very excited about this native version - much faster.
I know people are happy as the infamous GIF bug is fixed, but seriously this is one of the worst 'beta' apps I have tried. This mac app has been in development for ages, then been in closed beta and now finally it's available to everyone to try. Our team just switched to the beta native app, and already found several critical bugs with the app within minutes. Sorry guys, this is really poorly put together and the num…
I agree - I feel like the time would have been better spent implementing Adium/Pidgin plugins first.
The cost to setting up and maintaining your own server and emulating many of the more modern HipChat features (drag+drop file sharing, archived/searchable history, mobile push notifications) is not trivial. Most companies find it far cheaper to spend money on a service than roll their own in house (see also: GitHub, UserVoice, hosted WordPress, etc). Also, nontechnical people are often not very comfortable using IRC/…
The account manager at my company takes offense to this. Sorry, but even "nontechnical" people have setup mIRC when they were 14.
I'm sorry but I'd classify quite a few of my peers as non-technical and even as 20-somethings they don't even know what IRC is.
Immediately noticed one short coming: I can't resize the font any more. In the AIR version Cmd/Ctrl+Plus/Minus just worked (perhaps as a result of the AIR implementation, not a product decision), but in this native version it doesn't and there are no preferences for it, either. If the HipChat guys see this, please consider it as feature for an update soon?