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by maitrik 3296 days ago
Really believe that Microsoft should have bought Slack. It makes perfect sense for them and aligns with their vision to be the productivity center of everyone's workflow.

Microsoft doesnt understand this space at all. Look what they are doing to Skype by making it more like Snapchat when their main use case is business related. Teams also feels so unfinished.

10 comments

>Look what they are doing to Skype by making it more like Snapchat

Yes I was definitely thrown for a loop with the new Skype that auto-installed on my phone. I'm a boring 37 year old developer that needs skype for business calls, why the hell does it now look like some teenager's social app?

Exactly. Way to abandon most of older folks who actually purchase Skype credits.

PS. ux-app looks interesting. I can give some feed back as a designer if you want.

> PS. ux-app looks interesting. I can give some feed back as a designer if you want.

Thanks :) and yes, I'd love to hear your feedback, me email is eli@ux-app.com

Microsoft is all over the map with collaboration apps—I can't really figure out where their head is at. They have Outlook Groups, GigJam, Teams (their new Slack clone), Sharepoint, and Yammer.
Microsoft buying Slack doesn't make sense to me, unless they buy it just to shut it down. MS already has Skype for Business (Lync) which is doing really well in more traditional companies. Their business strategy is all about integrating everything with all the other Microsoft products: Office, Outlook, Windows, Exchange, etc. Slack is completely stand-alone with an open API.
Skypes main use case isn't business related, and you can tell because they still use freaking Lync on macs
Skype for Business is Lync, and has little to do with Skype proper.
They also still use Lync on Windows, but it is unusable. Most of the teams in the company I am working for right now are either using Slack or Hipchat.
> Skype by making it more like Snapchat when their main use case is business related Yes! Went downhill straight after the Metro/flat UI change.
One thing I don't get is Microsoft Teams, which seems to be their closest Slack competitor, while they also have Skype and Lync.
MS is just following google's lead
Salesforce, Oracle, or IBM would make more sense to me...
thankfully they did not, would've killed slack imo
Don't they already own Yammer?
Yes, they do.
Don't generalize the company products with the company teams. I don't have an opinion on your comments on Skype. Teams is a competitor and tied to Active Directory. But many employees are involved in slack channels across Microsoft based, open sourced based, and other channels daily.

Slack/Teams/etc are tools. Real work will find the right tools and the right people and the right working model.