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An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft

mattstoller.substack.com

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Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft

#71

Post by bearcobra »

rmrfstar wrote: post #57
cafed00d wrote: post #9

> it gave away its new product for no or low cost to existing clients, and bundled it with existing product lines. In a society with functional antitrust laws, such activity would be illegal. But alas. I find this statement highly suspect. What kind of world do we want to live in where regulators delineate product areas. I see Microsoft integrating Teams into their productivity product bundle as feature; not a bug. O…

Take a look at the issue from another point of view. Predatory pricing and bundling are two destructive ways to compete. Predatory pricing is just dumping. You sell something below cost until your competition goes out of business, then you either raise prices or hold prices constant but reduce quality (eg Amazon selling counterfeit books). Bundling is requiring people to purchase A+B in combination. An example would…

Defender is a good example of why we might not want regulators to decide product categories. To me it seems perfectly reasonable that an operating system would offer a malware protection feature. Just because a feature wasn't included in a previous version and an aftermarket offering was developed, shouldn't mean that a vendor can't improve the product by adding it in.

Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft

#72

Post by rmrfstar »

sandworm101 wrote: post #61
shp0ngle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea how that happened, but one day, I found Teams suddenly automatically installed on my spouses computer; and not only auto-installed, but it auto-started on Windows start. How? Why? It was probably bundled with Office and/or Windows. MS got news-breaking fine for far less with Netscape before. But, nobody cares in 2020.

Oh, lots of us care. It's just that the people who care the most arent using Windows much anymore. They are using linux. That choice, that freedom to install a competator OS, has empowered microsoft to do such things without fear of regulators.

Some of us who care have to use Windows at work. Instead of paying us more, our companies spend obscene sums on inferior software because that's what everyone else does.

Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft

#73

Post by cnity »

chii wrote: post #41
cafed00d wrote: post #9

> it gave away its new product for no or low cost to existing clients, and bundled it with existing product lines. In a society with functional antitrust laws, such activity would be illegal. But alas. I find this statement highly suspect. What kind of world do we want to live in where regulators delineate product areas. I see Microsoft integrating Teams into their productivity product bundle as feature; not a bug. O…

> we run the risk of creating separate product areas and none of them working well together or, have mandated open apis that _force_ products to integrate. That's what the web is today (mostly). Links, and embedable content (like frames). APIs and data. The reason companies don't do this - as demonstrated fairly recently by google with their removal of xmpp protocols from google chat - is that open apis prevent lock.…

> That's what the web is today

Are you suggesting that the web is the way it is today because benevolent governments dictated it be so? Do you have any links about this?

Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft

#74

Post by Godel_unicode »

shp0ngle wrote: post #37
interestica wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like MS literally installed this about two hours ago for me with a forced update on Win10

I wonder if it's Office thing or they just push it to all Windows users.

It's an O365 thing, it has nothing to do with Windows. It also depends on a few things with the subscription and settings, so everyone won't get it automatically and if you do it's easy* to turn off.

*Once you know where to look.

Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft

#75

Post by bradstewart »

Gravityloss wrote: post #60
addicted wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can build a 1 click experience similar to the Teams add-in for outlook.

So some kind of plugin?

Yep. For instance, there's a Zoom plugin that puts a "make a Zoom meeting" button right there as well.

Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft

#76

Post by rmrfstar »

bearcobra wrote: post #71
rmrfstar wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a look at the issue from another point of view. Predatory pricing and bundling are two destructive ways to compete. Predatory pricing is just dumping. You sell something below cost until your competition goes out of business, then you either raise prices or hold prices constant but reduce quality (eg Amazon selling counterfeit books). Bundling is requiring people to purchase A+B in combination. An example would…

Defender is a good example of why we might not want regulators to decide product categories. To me it seems perfectly reasonable that an operating system would offer a malware protection feature. Just because a feature wasn't included in a previous version and an aftermarket offering was developed, shouldn't mean that a vendor can't improve the product by adding it in.

The regulator wouldn't have to do anything more invasive than say, "Microsoft will charge its development cost or greater for any additional features that are currently offered commercially".

Yes, that would create some accounting overhead. But it's a small price to pay to keep Godzilla from eating the villagers' livestock.

Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft

#77

Post by sandworm101 »

rmrfstar wrote: post #72
sandworm101 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, lots of us care. It's just that the people who care the most arent using Windows much anymore. They are using linux. That choice, that freedom to install a competator OS, has empowered microsoft to do such things without fear of regulators.

Some of us who care have to use Windows at work. Instead of paying us more, our companies spend obscene sums on inferior software because that's what everyone else does.

I'm in that boat. Boss just told us to make sure our office 365 and teams accounts work from home. I emailed him back: "Then buy me a new computer because i dont got windows at home." In all likelyhood they will be issuing me a work laptop ... but now that i think about it, that is just another sale for microsoft. Evil is profitable.

Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft

#79

Post by Terrario »

sandworm101 wrote: post #58
thrower123 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with common APIs is that they are a lowest common denominator. I deal with this all the time with Microsoft's Bot Framework - which is somewhat shitty open protocol for writing chat bots that plug into a whole range of messaging platforms, including Teams and Slack. It's functional, more or less, but it by necessity has to target the lowest common set of capabilities of the services it plugs into, and tha…

Yes but at least you are allowed to write that bodgy code. In some people's ideal world such APIs would be hidden behind DRM, chatbots only physically possible with godzilla's permission.

No idea why this is being downvoted. This is precisely what Apple does.

Case in point, Apple develops better protocol for wireless headphones for their phones than standard Bluetooth and instead of allowing others to develop for it, they lock it down for themselves forcing users to buy airpods for the “seamless apple experience”.

Re: An Economy of Godzillas: Salesforce, Slack, and Microsoft

#80

Post by tartoran »

rmrfstar wrote: post #72
sandworm101 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, lots of us care. It's just that the people who care the most arent using Windows much anymore. They are using linux. That choice, that freedom to install a competator OS, has empowered microsoft to do such things without fear of regulators.

Some of us who care have to use Windows at work. Instead of paying us more, our companies spend obscene sums on inferior software because that's what everyone else does.

If it weren't for work I'd ditch windows in no time. I dual boot so when done with work I run linux. Still wish windows wouldn't touch my system but for now I have no other option
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