
Slack is Screwed - portal_narlish
http://venturebeat.com/2017/03/10/probeat-slack-is-screwed/
======
mjolk
Great clickbait title, venturebeat.

> (Google and Microsoft are entering the group chat space..) In other words,
> Slack doesn’t offer anything that Google and Microsoft can’t replicate.

Of course Google and Microsoft can replicate the functionality of Slack --
they have smart, talented staff and chatrooms are a solved problem. However,
where Slack excels is in cutting across organizational units, skill-sets, and
getting people to use it. It's persistent-history IRC without a technical
barrier and great marketing/user acquisition/word-of-mouth.

Unless you're a Microsoft tech-org (meaning C#/.net is the norm, not
exception), there's a high likelihood that the only Microsoft software that
engineering and design departments have installed is Skype; if I was at Slack,
wouldn't sweat the scenario of sales, marketing, and engineering suddenly
adopting Microsoft (in fact, "Microsoft Teams" was ostensibly announced in
November and no one in my circles has mentioned it).

Google is a trickier problem for Slack. Everyone uses Gmail and Google is the
landing page of the HTTP-internet. However, and maybe this is contentious,
Google's need to integrate their myriad services turns users away. Not to beat
a dead horse, but Google Plus could not have asked for better conditions for
organic growth and it still somehow turned into a ghost town.

> Almost every business either has G Suite or Office 365... As a company, why
> the hell would you shell out for one of them and Slack?

But, to my experience and opinion, "already paid for" and "close enough" may
peel away some users from Slack and towards Google -- this is why orgs end up
using HipChat.

~~~
Delmania
One of the organizations that I am currently employed with is a remote .NET
business. We use Slack for our communications. Office365 is separate from
Visual Studio Team Services. You'll find very few purist organisations, as
most use whatever is convenient.

------
aphextron
Slack is _way_ too expensive. $9/month/user quickly becomes an insane amount
of money for large organizations to spend on something that is essentially an
IRC client.

------
chris_7
Can't wait for it to die off. The typical "all day meeting with the everyone
in your company and no agenda" usage is terrible and the software does very
little to discourage it holistically.

------
amptorn
Having competitors doesn't mean you're screwed.

~~~
mgiannopoulos
Excessive statements on headlines help click through ratios though

------
AzzieElbab
Oh God, how many stupid, power hungry, buggy chat apps will I have to install
on my phone. Make it stop

~~~
api
Chat / audio / video and related comms software seems to be a lemon market.

------
mgiannopoulos
Office365 and G Suite are costly for many SMEs. There's plenty of space there
for Slack.

~~~
Eridrus
The pricing for all of Gsuite($5) or O365($10) seems about on par with just
paying for Slack($8), unless you're using the free tier, and those businesses
don't really matter to anyone by definition.

~~~
mgiannopoulos
I would argue that the free tier matters to any company that offers one,
otherwise they would not offer it.

------
mathattack
I don't think too many companies are scared of Microsoft anymore. This isn't
the 90s.

