That's the whole Innovator's Dilemma argument: simplistic, minimal versions of the value propositions of larger products, produced by upstarts, have an uncanny way of stealing the entire market from incumbents. The key thing you said was "I actually prefer Trello over Jira".
The reason that happens is that the incumbent --- along with their most vocal customers! --- is blinded to what 80% of the market wants by the demands of the high-end 20% of the market. Yes, Trello hasn't duplicated the entire Jira product. But it might not need to to capture 80% of the revenue of the market.
Yes I prefer the simple Trello over Jira but, only for my own personal projects. Trello is completely useless where I work and, is in no way, disruptive to the Enterprise.
My point was that, if you can't figure out where a Kanban board is in Jira you should probably stick to Waterfall development. The author either didn't spend a few minutes looking at Jira or has no clue what the real difference between the two products are.
I highly doubt Trello would have replaced Jira at the pace the article suggests. Either Trello would become overly complex or Jira would adapt and become simpler and add even more needed features. I don't believe Atlassian bought Trello out of fear that Trello would innovate them out of market. That dilema just doesn't apply here IMO.
We experimented with Trello at our company before we bought into Jira, and the attempt fell flat on its face because of Trello simplicity. It's hard to describe the difference, but in a nutshell Jira was better at supporting collaboration, capturing knowledge, and supporting subtly different workflows that different teams required.
Based on that, it's kind of a neat move by Atlassian. Now they have an instant base of potential new Jira users. As these Trello customers grow and find out that their needs can no longer be met, now there is a clear upgrade path.
Presumably they will build some migration tools to make the upgrade seamless/convert the database of tickets. Or they could even build in cross-product integration so you can embed links to Jira tickets in Trello cards, or vice versa.
errr, that's the point, it's basic and simple, it doesn't support the same feature set, but, in many cases, you can get away without all the features.....
like when you can make powerpoints without ever needing to draw, in fact, not having drawing tools means you keep your things simpler and don't over complicate the essential thing you are doing.
it certainly won't suit everyone though, and for me, I went Jira -> Trello -> Youtrack and got a nice blend of things.
The reason that happens is that the incumbent --- along with their most vocal customers! --- is blinded to what 80% of the market wants by the demands of the high-end 20% of the market. Yes, Trello hasn't duplicated the entire Jira product. But it might not need to to capture 80% of the revenue of the market.