[shortstuffsushi]

Hmm. I don't think I can get behind the idea that Trello "disrupted" Atlassian, and certainly not that it would have killed them (no more than Medium killed WordPress...). At most, it may have killed Jira, but Trello seems to capture a slightly different market. Could there be a slimmed version of Jira that could fit in place of Trello? Sure, but I don't think Atlassian would have gone that route (thus the acquisition, right?). Then, when their big product paid off, they bought the sub market as well.

Re:integration, I also think he shortchanges Atlassian. I like Atlassian, so I'm biased, sure, but I think that they could successfully integrate without "killing" Trello. Time will tell on that, I suppose. Also, to say that "Android isn't incorporated into Google" just doesn't seem right. It's also completely different. Google acquired Android, which is a mobile platform, where they're a web company. Atlassian and Trello both offer web based services, and in this case even the same type of product.

[tptacek]

One way to look at this is that companies go upmarket from a firm base of downmarket customers. There's a lot of uncertainty in upmarket enterprise sales: the engagements can involve RFPs or bakeoffs and involve dogfights that incumbents can lose to upstarts. A company can do really well in the high-end markets without ever having a stable, defensible customer base in it.

So if Trello grows to the point where it seriously threatens Jira's downmarket base, Atlassian has two problems: first, that Trello is sapping their downmarket revenue, but second, that Trello then has a beachhead from which to start attacking their high-end prospects as well.

"Killing Atlassian" is surely easier said than done, and probably hyperbolic. But buying Trello to prevent the emergence of a credible competitor to them across all their important markets? That sounds like a pretty plausible explanation for the valuation.

I'm a little skeptical, though, if only because I think Trello has a lot more potential than Jira (and of Jira's value proposition in the abstract). I think Atlassian just bought the next Microsoft Excel.

[abandonliberty]

>seems to capture a slightly different market.

Yes. Trello is great for non-technical and/or non-JIRA users. It's great UX means you can throw almost any user at it.

It's so simple that people can abuse it to fulfill a variety of needs.

JIRA's upside is its downside: greater specificity - joined at the hip with complexity.