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by area51org 3758 days ago
Between the two I'd pick Slack, hands-down. Lync is awful, and I have to use it—so I use the Adium with the OCS plugin instead. It doesn't do audio calls or video, but it is stable and fast. (For video, hangouts are much better anyway.)

Slack? I use it, but I don't see the attraction. It's just another chat client with a couple of cute features. I'm really not clear on why the world seems so enamored with something that's really not much of an improvement on something we had in 1995.
1 comments
dasil003 3758 days ago
It's a huge practical improvement over IRC. The integrations are turn-key for most things, very powerful, and deep search integration, so it can become your one-stop shop for things. It realistically has the possibility to replace Dropbox and email for internal collaboration. The channels, groups, and notifications preferences make it possible to structure your team for maximum signal to noise across both desktop and mobile.

Saying that Slack is "just another chat client" is sort of like all the old arguments about how much more powerful PCs were than Macs because they have more features—it's ignoring the value of design and conceptual elegance, and the real impact that has on UX and productivity.

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area51org 3758 days ago
Every feature you mention was available in the '90s. I'm not saying Slack is bad, just that it's nothing impressive or innovative. The only surprising thing about it is that someone didn't make it sooner.
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asgardiator 3758 days ago
> The only surprising thing about it is that someone didn't make it sooner.

... is that not the hallmark of a great product?

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goldenkey 3758 days ago
Moreso that open source sprouts by necessity mostly. IRC buildbots and other integrations have been around forever. It's just that Slack paid for the integrations that really makes it shine. Money, and well the work->integrations it buys, really talks.
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astrostl 3757 days ago
UI/UX.
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dasil003 3757 days ago
> Every feature you mention was available in the '90s.

The fact that you could log irc transcripts, index them, give them a web interface, and write bots to chain things together is not the same feature as Slack integrations. If that is your bar for a feature, then we might as well give up trying to write innovative software, because it all uses the same opcodes anyway.

> I'm not saying Slack is bad, just that it's nothing impressive or innovative.

The attitude that a new product is not innovative because its features resemble features from past products leads to no logical conclusion except that nothing is innovative. Everything is based on previous ideas.

If a product were merely the sum of its features, then Apple would not be alive today.

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