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Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

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Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#161

Post by jerf »

dimino wrote: post #114
jerf wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, all the pieces to make Slack have been around for a while. But nobody ever put them together properly. So the fact that all the pieces existed doesn't count for very much in the end. Nor was it obvious that if someone put it together properly it would achieve commercial success. I was theoretically in the right place at the right time to have put together something like Slack at my job, but there wa…

What people are saying is that not only have the pieces to make Slack been around for awhile, but IRC has implemented those pieces successfully for 20 years. The only "innovation" Slack provided was the UI, and that's textbook "bad startup idea", because of how easy it is for someone else to step into the space.

"but IRC has implemented those pieces successfully for 20 years."

It did indeed... implement them as pieces. The out-of-the-box experience for an IRC network does not look like Slack.

And the UI was a non-trivial component. Personally I'm in the segment who doesn't much care and for whom IRC is a fine amount of bandwidth... but a looooot of other people, including lots of people with money, want something more.

Slack is not "just IRC". The proof is that if it was, we wouldn't be talking about Slack, we'd be talking about IRC. We aren't.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#162

Post by beamatronic »

empath75 wrote: post #133
Latty wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really weirded out that people can't see the value Slack added. Having your messages stored while you are offline is hugely valuable. If I have been out of signal range on a train, I want to be able to look at history on my phone once I'm back in range of a cell tower. Beyond that, a well made UI for web, desktop and phone that is consistent is valuable. 'Adding a pretty UI' isn't a zero-effort or skill thing. No…

I work at the company that popularized internet messaging in the 90s. We used our own product exclusively for interoffice communication, until slack came out, and slack totally replaced it within the course of a couple of months, totally organically. Literally nobody at the company uses our own product any more.

Yahoo Messenger, right?

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#163

Post by troycarlson »

wubalub wrote: post #87

I've been using skype for text messaging pretty constantly for the last 3 years, and I'm not sure why people hate it so. it has groups, 1-1 chat and video. Searching history can be a bit of a pain, but everything else seems to be there. Sometimes I wonder what I'm missing.

One thing Skype doesn't do so well: when a new person joins they then have to add every other team member one-by-one. With Slack you simply join the team and have immediate access to everyone. Not a huge deal with small teams but adding 50+ people on Skype is a real PITA.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#164

Post by yarou »

threatofrain wrote: post #150
Latty wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They provided a ton of value by bringing things together, by making everything easy and work intuatively. I guess my point is I think too many people are indeed dismissing slack as being lucky, or just pushing with heavy marketing, when I think they actually did something of value we can learn from.

But what would you say about HipChat or other competitors? Why didn't HipChat win? Was there a critical feature they missed or botched? Providing value is not the whole story. That's why I begin looking for alternative factors -- like luck and circumstance.

Ultimately, the deal breaker for me is that Slack is not on-prem. Microsoft's solution will be, and that will be the true end for Slack.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#165

Post by BoorishBears »

threatofrain wrote: post #150
Latty wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They provided a ton of value by bringing things together, by making everything easy and work intuatively. I guess my point is I think too many people are indeed dismissing slack as being lucky, or just pushing with heavy marketing, when I think they actually did something of value we can learn from.

But what would you say about HipChat or other competitors? Why didn't HipChat win? Was there a critical feature they missed or botched? Providing value is not the whole story. That's why I begin looking for alternative factors -- like luck and circumstance.

Marketing

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#166

Post by duderific »

nkw wrote: post #65
Mc_Big_G wrote: post #3

It's funny that Slack thinks they've perfectly balanced a unique and special snowflake on the tip of a unicorn's horn when what they've really done is added a pretty UI to IRC. It's a chat room. With channels. So, sorry to tell you guys, but it's not innovative, it's lucky. We had chat rooms back in 1995. Yes, that scrappy startup Microsoft will not have too much trouble implementing a chat room and they don't need l…

I know from a technical standpoint Slack is just a pretty UI on top of IRC. However, consider for instance, one of the Slack teams I use on a daily basis is a law firm. The difference of getting users at a non-tech company, such as a law firm, to use a chat client like Slack vs an IRC client is a huge chasm. I've been guilty several times myself of saying UIs or veneers over long existing technology isn't that impres…

Right. Here on Hacker News, we look at things through techie lenses. Most companies are not tech companies, and cannot set up their own IRC. User experience is the only thing that matters to these companies. They don't care if you're using MongoDb or Postgres, or that you're using React instead of Angular. They just want something that works reliably and is easy to use.

It is extremely hard to create a compelling and delightful user experience that is also maintainable so that new features can be added quickly. So to say "they just slapped a nice UI on IRC" is a little short sighted.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#167

Post by serge2k »

Latty wrote: post #27
Mc_Big_G wrote: post #3

It's funny that Slack thinks they've perfectly balanced a unique and special snowflake on the tip of a unicorn's horn when what they've really done is added a pretty UI to IRC. It's a chat room. With channels. So, sorry to tell you guys, but it's not innovative, it's lucky. We had chat rooms back in 1995. Yes, that scrappy startup Microsoft will not have too much trouble implementing a chat room and they don't need l…

I'm really weirded out that people can't see the value Slack added. Having your messages stored while you are offline is hugely valuable. If I have been out of signal range on a train, I want to be able to look at history on my phone once I'm back in range of a cell tower. Beyond that, a well made UI for web, desktop and phone that is consistent is valuable. 'Adding a pretty UI' isn't a zero-effort or skill thing. No…

> 'Adding a pretty UI' isn't a zero-effort or skill thing.

It's not a huge barrier to entry though.

I think the hate comes from the ridiculous letter.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#168

Post by 627467 »

Between this and the debate around the new macbooks/surface-studio, Microsoft is having very good week in terms on gaining some mindshare and good-will from the technorati and the (traditionally) anti-microsoft press.

Slack is great. I'm part of many slack communities and until they move I'll stay (although they are all in the free-tier). While the many millions who are already part of the O365 subscription base (and who probably don't even know slack or why they need them) won't have reason to start a community on Slack I think Slack is safe in the short-run with those who don't pay the "MS-tax" or those who are already part of existing slack communities.

And while Slack is a great product (as the IRC on steroids that it is) it is easy to replicate and so MS now did.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#169

Post by randomsofr »

muad wrote: post #29

Slack is the most overrated startup of the last couple years. A native ui for IRC with some extra features. Their valuation is laughable and is a prime example of the bubble forming in vc tech.

> with some extra features

That's what got them where they are right now.

Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft

#170

Post by donum »

Latty wrote: post #142
kzisme wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure OP was using bots as an example - IRC bouncers exist ,and if that's too technical for you then there are multiple other solutions.

Sure, and none of those solutions are as good as 'scroll up' after clicking five buttons to make a slack team. By quite a way.

When I used a Bouncer, all messages that I missed just were there after logging in. I could just scroll up. Easy!
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