I didn't see such a catastrophic marketing decision for a long time.
Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft
21–30 of 301 posts
Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft
#22When Steve Jobs "Welcomed IBM" with a full page ad, it was fun. It fit the vibe of who he was and the slightly rebellious marketing campaigns Apple was running. Slack's "Welcome Microsoft" letter felt weird. It felt disconnected from the company and product many of us love and use every day. Might have been stronger to silently add a feature to Slack that lets you communicate with Microsoft Team's members.
It definitely felt polar opposite to the tone of the wonderful animated animal character ad. Even visually the tone was too stark.
Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft
#23Our entire company switched to Slack within basically a day. While that's a big selling point for Slack's ease of use, it also means it'd be easy to switch away to a competitor within a day too.
Team communication tools don't suffer the same network-effect downsides to switching that other social apps do. The decision to switch can be made by one person. Everybody else is responding to a mandate.
Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft
#24It'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…
They did far more than "added a pretty UI". I used IRC for years, and getting it to do the things I use Slack for (mobile interface, file transfers, a half dozen API integrations, near instant search, etc etc) was either painful or impossible.
Also, if all it took was a pretty UI, companies like Hipchat would have been the winner years ago. I mean, Slack has a better UI in my opinion than Hipchat, but it's an example of taking the basics of IRC and slapping an interface of it.
Besides that though, I agree this letter was pretty stupid.
Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft
#25It'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…
Time to update the old canard. "If you could have invented Slack... you would have invented Slack." Execution is everything.
Execution is everything? Then Microsoft is also copying their execution. What's wrong with that? Why going overboard and trying to troll Microsoft?
Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft
#26It'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…
Time to update the old canard. "If you could have invented Slack... you would have invented Slack." Execution is everything.
> Execution is everything.
Execution is a lot, but so is timing. Execution can be controlled, timing is mostly luck.
Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft
#27It'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, Slack isn't a world away from IRC or email - but it's enough better that people want to use it, that's good. I'm not sure where all the hate comes from.
Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft
#28It'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…
Agree that "it's a chat room" but it's also a chat room that's pretty well entrenched at this point, hooked into a lot of people's entire operational workflows thanks to API hooks and bots, etc.
In short, they are entrenched and have done a great job of ensuring that the cost of switching is high enough that it's going to take a lot of justification to get somebody to take the time to make the move.
All they really have to do is avoid a colossal screw up.
Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft
#29Slack 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.
Re: Slack may regret its letter to Microsoft
#30Microsoft can just copy everything that Slack does right, give it away for a fraction or for free and there's nothing that they can do about it.
If they give it away for free (as part of office365), is that not effectively anticompetitive behaviour?
Well, now that slack has so "genuinely" welcomed microsoft as a competitor, I don't think they can turn around and argue the opposite for the same offering.