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European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams

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Re: European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams

#121

Post by toomuchtodo »

pembrook wrote: post #115
toomuchtodo wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Teams already is already terrible UX, we have nowhere to go but up. Perhaps you are unaware, and if so, you should be thankful you don’t have to lose time using it. There are objectively better solutions available.

I too hate Microsoft teams but it can always get worse, you have no idea.

I'm in several Slack teams for non profits and professional orgs, Teams for a client or two, IRC and Matrix servers for digital archiving ops, Signal/WhatsApp/GroupMe/Telegram groups, etc. I have been in tech for 25+ years, I am familiar with the extremes. You are right, things can be bad, that is the point of systems engineering: to drive directionally towards continual improvement. Success is never assured, but throwing our hands up and giving up is not reasonable. Make a plan, work the plan. Default to action. Work is hard.

I recommend "Thinking in Systems" by Donella H. Meadows (ISBN13 9781603580557) on this topic [1]. It's ~$10 on Amazon as of this comment, and the PDF is easy to find with a quick web search.

[1] https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3737036W/Thinking_in_systems

Re: European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams

#122

Post by awesome_dude »

If nothing else this puts the spotlight on alternatives to Teams/Slack, which will increase adoption, and should increase pressure to improve (as far as that goes...)

I've not liked Slack for FOSS projects (it's not IRC, it has problems with moderation enforcement), and NOBODY likes Teams.

Re: European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams

#123

Post by JumpCrisscross »

parchley wrote: post #89
troyvit wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is the part I hope Europe gets. They don't have nearly as much money to throw at Matrix as Microsoft can throw at Teams, but they do have massive resources, and I bet that since Matrix doesn't have many of the same shitty KPIs as Slack and Teams, those resources can go much further.

Are you saying that Microsoft is more wealthy than all of “Europe”? And surely you must mean the EU. The money needed to improve matrix is nothing compared to what is already being spent on Microsoft products.

> Are you saying that Microsoft is more wealthy than all of “Europe”?

"In 2024, the EU spent €403 billion on research and development" [1]. In 2024, Microsoft spend $29.5bn on R&D [2]. So about 20 Microsofts makes up the entire EU's R&D expenditure.

Alphabet, meanwhile, spent $49.3bn on R&D in 2024 [3]. It earned $350bn that year. So it would be correct to say that Microsoft and Alphabet's revenues, alone, rival the total amount Europe spends on research and development. (Non-EU non-British spending is insignificant.)

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

[2] https://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar24/

[3] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1652044/000165204425...

Re: European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams

#124

Post by diggyhole »

uyzstvqs wrote: post #47

This does not bode well. Matrix is honestly not good, as someone who has tried to use it. It's slow, janky, often unstable, and poorly standardized. My suggestion: https://threema.com/en/products/work (hosted) or https://zulip.com/ (OSS self-hosted).

Sounds like something Europe would love.

Re: European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams

#126

Post by lwarfield »

thibaut_barrere wrote: post #106
yabones wrote: post #39

My team started using Matrix/Element after years of frustration with Teams and Slack. It's far from perfect, but using a simple application with no built-in ads, AI, bloat, crap, etc is wonderful. I really hope the EU throws some serious money at them to get the bugs worked out, add some minor features, and clean up the UX enough that an "office normie" can onboard as easily as MS. My dream is that Matrix can do for…

France is leveraging Matrix in Tchap https://element.io/fr/case-studies/tchap (part of La Suite Numérique https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/#products recently featured on HN). Presumably there is funding or resources because of that.

I've always thought the really low bandwidth support they added a few years ago was to support the french subs. It matched all the requirements of VLF/ELF communications.

Re: European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams

#127

Post by Arathorn »

chme wrote: post #118
Arathorn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did you try it? Both Matrix the protocol and implementations like Element X have improved immeasurably over the last year or so.

Element X is in some cases still a downgrade from Element. For instance there doesn't seem to be a way to create local key backups anymore. Also, that calls between Element and Element X are incompatible means both apps need to be installed in order to receive calls from all contacts. Still, I love Matrix and hope that these issues will be resolved in time.

Manually importing/exporting keybackups is on the todo list (albeit towards the bottom). Supporting legacy calls is not (unless someone contributes it); the intention is to converge asap on native Matrix group calls.

Re: European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams

#128

Post by andrewflnr »

jaredklewis wrote: post #67
yabones wrote: post #39

My team started using Matrix/Element after years of frustration with Teams and Slack. It's far from perfect, but using a simple application with no built-in ads, AI, bloat, crap, etc is wonderful. I really hope the EU throws some serious money at them to get the bugs worked out, add some minor features, and clean up the UX enough that an "office normie" can onboard as easily as MS. My dream is that Matrix can do for…

I don’t know much about Matrix. Maybe in this case the key is money. But having worked at various startups and enterprises, it is very common for lots of money and resources to thrown at projects and for little or no progress to be made. Money might be a necessary condition but it’s definitely not a sufficient one. See Microsoft teams. Again I know nothing about Matrix, but I found your comment about UX concerning. U…

> UX is a problem that is almost immune to money.

Unfortunately this is very well-put.

But on the other hand, I think it's reasonable to hope that the "clear vision" for Matrix can largely be cribbed from all the other nigh-indistinguishable team chat apps like Slack, Discord, Mattermost, et al. In that case money to actually make the obvious fixes might be enough.

Re: European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams

#129

Post by kgwxd »

yabones wrote: post #39

My team started using Matrix/Element after years of frustration with Teams and Slack. It's far from perfect, but using a simple application with no built-in ads, AI, bloat, crap, etc is wonderful. I really hope the EU throws some serious money at them to get the bugs worked out, add some minor features, and clean up the UX enough that an "office normie" can onboard as easily as MS. My dream is that Matrix can do for…

I don't know anything about Matrix. What makes it "far from perfect"? First priority of every business chat should be to move the conversation to something designed for the business concern at hand, because a chat app is a terrible place for it to live.

Re: European Commission Trials Matrix to Replace Teams

#130

Post by Arathorn »

thibaut_barrere wrote: post #106
yabones wrote: post #39

My team started using Matrix/Element after years of frustration with Teams and Slack. It's far from perfect, but using a simple application with no built-in ads, AI, bloat, crap, etc is wonderful. I really hope the EU throws some serious money at them to get the bugs worked out, add some minor features, and clean up the UX enough that an "office normie" can onboard as easily as MS. My dream is that Matrix can do for…

France is leveraging Matrix in Tchap https://element.io/fr/case-studies/tchap (part of La Suite Numérique https://lasuite.numerique.gouv.fr/#products recently featured on HN). Presumably there is funding or resources because of that.

France donates to the Matrix Foundation (which helps the protocol retain its neutrality and independence, and is very much appreciated), but doesn't currently financially support Element's dev as their upstream. We're trying to fix that though!
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