
Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead - crsmith
http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/04/source-microsoft-mulled-an-8-billion-bid-for-slack-will-focus-on-skype-instead/
======
cdnsteve
We initially used Skype on our team to communicate with others. However, the
software was horribly buggy on OSX. Slack has become part of our main
toolchain. It works, has the basic features you need and doesn't get in our
way. The integrations are great and we'll continue to use them.

Unless Microsoft rebuilds Skype for the ground up, I don't see us leaving
Slack for it. They had their chance, and they dropped the ball.

~~~
Negative1
"Unless Microsoft rebuilds Skype for the ground up"

This. This exactly. Is it really unbelievable to assume Microsoft wouldn't
attempt to build their own IRC+ clone and save a few billion while they are at
it?

I do agree with you, Slack is much better than Skype, but I would add that
Lync is just as good. I went from Lync to Slack (after changing jobs) and I
would say that Lync not only works just as well but has more features a team
would find useful. For instance, multi-user video+voice chat w/ great
screensharing/presentation functionality.

Edit: Should mention I was using Lync in a Windows shop and now Slack in OSX.
In Windows it worked perfectly but I could be convinced it had issues in OSX.

~~~
kough
When I was forced to use Lync (due to an acquisition) in 2014 it was
absolutely fucking terrible. The OS X client failed to report online status
correctly, couldn't participate in most group chats or video or audio calls,
and crashed regularly. Also weirdly non-native UI. And, no linux client to
speak of - for a startup like the one I worked for where many devs used linux,
that was a nonstarter. Has the story improved since then? (Thankfully no
longer have to deal with it since I quit that job a half year later)

~~~
0x0
LOL, "lync.exe" a.k.a. "Skype for Business".

1\. The worst brand management this side of 1984. "Skype for Business" has
nothing to do with Skype and the .exe is still called "lync.exe"

2\. SDK: Trying to use the C# SDK for even simple tasks leaves your app
deadlocking or spinning 100% CPU in threads you didn't create or throwing
native exceptions that doesn't make any sense as they are referencing raw hex
0x12345678 pointers or COM objects you never even touched. And if you try to
watchdog all that have fun with 5 orphaned lync.exe's claiming your USB
audio/video device.

~~~
spdustin
Microsoft products are filled with references left behind by what I can only
assume to be developers who were just hoping to get on a different product
team after their next review.

SharePoint's virtual path for its SOAP services is "_vti_bin". VTI = Vermeer
Technologies Incorporated, the makers of FrontPage and the FrontPage Server
Extensions.

Then there was Groove (brought in Ray Ozzie's luggage) that was renamed
SharePoint Workspace (groove.exe).

SharePoint Designer (which didn't actually have a visual designer in the 2013,
and final, release) crashes when performing some operations in source files
... With an exception in the FPEDITAX.DLL (FrontPage Editor ActiveX).

Those can all almost be forgiven - they are like vestigial organs after each
product evolved into something else.

Until you get to OneDrive. _smh_

~~~
bitJericho
I knew OneDrive was going to be the punchline -_- So much wasted time.

~~~
bbcbasic
Can you or the GP explain?

~~~
bitJericho
OneDrive For Business is pretty much unusable:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2ex10y/onedrive_f...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/2ex10y/onedrive_for_business_rant/)

------
chollida1
I wonder if the outcome would have been different if Slack was incorporated
outside of the US where Microsoft could use some of its non domiciled cash on
the acquisition?

[http://www.ibtimes.com/microsoft-admits-
keeping-92-billion-o...](http://www.ibtimes.com/microsoft-admits-
keeping-92-billion-offshore-avoid-paying-29-billion-us-taxes-1665938)

Also interesting to think that Slack could be worth so much. Look at ICQ,
Microsoft instant messenger, etc.

It seems as though slack like tools get eclipsed every 5-10 years as a new
generation comes along with a new favorite tool.

I'd be interested in hearing from someone who would argue that slack will be a
dominate communication tool in 5-8 years time and still exist in a meaningful
way in 10 years time.

~~~
gshulegaard
> It seems as though slack like tools get eclipsed every 5-10 years as a new
> generation comes along with a new favorite tool.

You've definitely got a point there. Although I do want to mention that part
of the reason Slack eclipsed other tools was, in part, its Websocket based
protocol. They have created a fairly complete unified messaging application
because of it (IMO).

They were the first movers in the area. I don't know if I would provide much
of a meaningful discussion regarding the longer term viability of Slack, but I
think they have a chance to be meaningful, maybe even dominate in 10 years
time.

They are already Websocket based and they are moving towards WebRTC
support...if they take that direction and add P2P support to provide truly
secure encrypted communications where certificates are negotiated P2P, then I
think they will explode to even greater heights than they have already
achieved. Of course, this is not a simple task, but the business implications
of truly secure communications channels would be compelling for most corporate
enterprises.

Now this is not the same as 100% secure endpoints, but it would be a massive
step in the right direction.

Edit: Forgot to add P2P link... [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/Guide/API/WebRT...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/Guide/API/WebRTC/Peer-to-peer_communications_with_WebRTC)

~~~
cpeterso
IRC Cloud's web client uses WebSockets.

~~~
gshulegaard
I don't think that IRC Cloud was originally based on websocket...I think it
used 'keep-alive' but I could be wrong. Although it still has documentation on
how to use HTTPS for stream end-points ([https://github.com/irccloud/irccloud-
tools/wiki/API-Overview](https://github.com/irccloud/irccloud-tools/wiki/API-
Overview)).

Also can't find much information about WebRTC support for IRC Cloud.

------
reitanqild
> Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and CEO Satya Nadella were among those
> unconvinced by the idea, with Gates pushing instead to add more features
> into Skype to make it more competitive with Slack in the business market,
> our source says.

I'd say fix it first.

Somehow the Skype name has gone from being an asset to being a liability to
the point where I cannot understand why they renamed Lync to "Skype for
business".

~~~
justinv
Agree. Especially when you actually open "Skype for Business" it says
"Microsoft Lync" at the top. It's a mess.

~~~
douche
They've finally fixed this with the last update to the Skype for Business
client.

It's still a huge clusterfuck of a rebranding. The two clients are just barely
compatible, and it's a huge mess when you're building a Skype for Business
tool, and the users think they can use regular Skype to do anything with it.

Hopefully "investing in Skype" is a code word for building out an API for
Office 365 Skype integrations that actually works. They've only been promising
it for two or three years.

~~~
GFischer
They have regularly bought out companies in that space (last one was Ray
Ozzie's Talko, in December, and they specifically said "Talko was acquired to
help fuel future innovation in Skype and Skype for Business. As part of the
Skype team, we’ll leverage Talko’s technology and the many things we’ve
learned during its design and development.").

Let's hope they actually benefit from those.

[http://betanews.com/2015/12/21/microsoft-cops-talko-for-
skyp...](http://betanews.com/2015/12/21/microsoft-cops-talko-for-skype-stuff/)

~~~
GFischer
I think the meaning got lost here :( . I was genuinely hoping for Skype &
Microsoft to benefit, it was not sarcastic or anything, and I thought it was
relevant information.

------
nakedrobot2
Skype is horrible. I'm sorry but it is such an awful tool. It crashes, it
loses my old conversations, group calls never work. It is truly horrible, the
codebase is a rotting pile of garbage that will never be fixed.

I am glad that Slack will not be eaten by Microsoft. I hope they really do
implement voice soon.

~~~
charlieflowers
> I hope they really do implement voice soon.

They have! It's in beta, but we've been using it at my workplace for 2 days
now. Audio only so far. Better audio quality than anything else we use
(appear.in, lync, hangouts, among others).

Integrated into slack, so you click a button in a channel to start a call
anyone in the channel can join. Nice.

------
untog
Sad thing is that Slack would be a _far_ better fit for Microsoft, given that
it's primarily business-focused. I've used Skype for work but only because
it's the only option we've had, not because anyone actually wants to use it.
Hangouts and Slack are so much more business-friendly.

That said, I think MS made the right call given that they already own Skype.
It could be good - great, even - if they actually _tried_. They don't need a
Slack acquisition for that, but they probably could do with rebuilding every
native app they have from the ground up, every single one is awful.

~~~
moheeb
I don't understand why Skype is so crappy. Most Microsoft software is at the
very least average, with several products being industry standards. Why is
Skype so different?

~~~
untog
I've always assumed that the acquisition failed horribly. The apps are still
the same code as pre-acquisition, and I'll bet a lot of the original
developers left pretty sharpish. It's quite possible that the original
codebase is an absolute train wreck, it's not as if it was _ever_ an amazing
app, after all.

I wonder if MS acquired Skype today (i.e. "The New Microsoft") whether they'd
have been more successful.

~~~
Splines
Skype has a ton of legacy (just look at this list:
[http://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-
computer/](http://www.skype.com/en/download-skype/skype-for-computer/)) -
supporting that can't be easy.

WhatsApp will probably face similar problems in 5-10 years, if they want to
maintain compatibility with the myriad of clients they have in the wild.

~~~
aylons
> WhatsApp will probably face similar problems in 5-10 years, if they want to
> maintain compatibility with the myriad of clients they have in the wild.

They don't. They just announced dropping support for Blackberry and S60.

------
mmaunder
Really glad MS didn't buy Slack. I think they're going to be an amazing big
business that will generate a lot of cash and opportunity.

Most acquisitions by big businesses, either early or late stage, destroy
value. Big biz thinks they can innovate by buying. Smaller biz wants an exit.
The innovation exits on acquisition and after earn-out. Both suffer and we all
lose what could have been the next Google.

~~~
k__
I think it depends on the level where the business acts on.

If you have a real low level technology, an acquisition can be a good thing,
because the big corp could integrate it some of their products and increase
the spreading.

But yeah, if we look at Skype and WhatsApp, it's probably good that Slack
didn't get acquired.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Weren't both of these somewhat successful acquisitions? i.e. Would Skype have
been better today without the acquisions, and did WhatsApp suffer product-wise
as a result of being part of FB?

~~~
wodenokoto
I think Skype suffered from their first acquisition and Microsoft never got it
back on to its original trajectory when they bought it.

Skype still has a lot of consumer good will and a strong brand. Amongst my
peers online video calling is called Skype notater what platform we use.

------
BlackjackCF
Slack would have been a great investment for Microsoft.

Still, I look at Skype and realize that Slack would have probably declined in
quality after an acquisition. Kind of glad it didn't pan out.

------
nickik
Even more focus on Skype? Great, maybe they can break it even more. Every chat
client, developed by 2 guys in their free time works far better the skype
chat. Message not delivered, hundrets of new messages when a new client logs
in, annyoing link replacment with pictures, group chats not working, adding
people to calls not working and so much more.

Fucking horrorshow

------
jefflinwood
Here's a list of Microsoft's announced acquisitions:

[https://www.microsoft.com/investor/Stock/AcquisitonHistory/A...](https://www.microsoft.com/investor/Stock/AcquisitonHistory/All/default.aspx)
(warning, asked for an MS Login first)

From their results from previous acquisitions, I don't understand what they
think they would get by purchasing Slack (unless it is a purely defensive move
against Slack developing an in-house document collaboration service, Office
365/Google Docs style).

~~~
gffrd
> against Slack developing an in-house document collaboration service, Office
> 365/Google Docs style

One can only dream …

~~~
jefflinwood
Bringing document collaboration side-by-side with team communication could
have a positive effect on productivity, and Slack could roll it into the per
user pricing they already have.

------
lifeisstillgood
What amazes me is just how bad the politics in MS must be to not swat Slack
aside like a fly.

Slack is basically an IRC server with bots. Office communicator / Msn
messenger/ whatever it is now / is installed on every Windows / office machine
and ties into the moat used apps in the world.

MS-Slack ought to have "Mary just updated the Walmart contract" messages
flinging around every marketing department in the world.

The fact it does not is testament to how far Giants can fall (in the 80s and
90s Microsoft would have already danced on Slacks grave).

Larry And Sergey need to study Microsoft a lot more carefully than "it was
Ballmers fault" to try and avoid the same fate.

------
vonklaus
slack needs to sell asap.

edit: to expand. Slack has 0 technology moat. The reason Github has been so
successful and has gone many years without significant competition, is that it
is an open platform _in the sense_ that I have my personal, work, and private
repos there. Many open source stuff is up there, and the platform allows me to
contribute to my private repos, public repos and quickly download software.

To some extent slack has this idea where you can have 3 or 4 organizations in
the app, but user to user seems to not be implemented, or at least non-
obvious. Everything is siloed in an org.

lots of companies and apps are working on chat and are substitutes for pieces.
It was not obvioius Github could make money or was significant for a long
time. Professional chat is the opposite.

* Low barrier to entry

* high competition

* limited revenue/margin

* open source alternatives

* largely based on users/social proof. e.g. could get myspaced.

* competing in a space that is "hot" and many larger companies are moving in, already poised to take this.

~~~
Eridrus
I'm not really bullish on Slack as a product, but I don't think Slack as a
business is so bad. I think Slack is trying to be the Yammer of IRC: you get
it in through a couple of people using it, and all of a sudden you convert the
entire enterprise, hence the focus on marketing.

Hipchat/Flowdock/probably others existed before Slack, and are still largely
interchangeable at this point, but they're not investing so heavily in
marketing.

I think a direct comparison to MySpace is inaccurate since neither they nor
their competitors are directly viral (yet?), but they could certainly be
replaced.

The question is: who would want to spend a pile of money trying to outmarket
Slack? It's hard to tell what their sales figures are, but if they get lodged
in the public's view as the company that does this, it will take concerted,
capital-intensive effort to dislodge them, and why would you go to that effort
for a low margin space?

Open Source is really not relevant in this space since the price is cheap and
you're paying for convenience.

------
vitaut
Skype reliability has deteriorated considerably over the years. We have
switched over to Google Hangouts which is more reliable and has better video
quality.

~~~
randomsearch
Can second this. Switched recently after bandwidth issues made Skype unusable.

------
mtgx
Has it even recovered $1 billion in profit from the $8.5 billion it paid for
Skype itself _5 years ago_? And Skype's best days may be behind it. I wonder
if they'll do another big write-off in 3 years like they did for aQuantive and
Nokia.

------
kasperset
Did they forgot Yammer?

~~~
cpeterso
Yammer does seem like a better fit, branding and technology wise, for a Slack-
like service than Skype. Microsoft has overextended the Skype brand. The new
Skype services are so notoriously crappy that they are a liability to the
name. Let the Skype brand focus exclusively on real-time video/multimedia
communication. Let the Yammer brand focus on asynchronous, web-based
communication for enterprises.

------
dpacmittal
How about they start by focusing on better linux and OSX compatibility. Skype
is horribly broken right now. Linux client hasn't been updated in 3 years:

[http://community.skype.com/t5/Linux/Why-is-Skype-on-Linux-
st...](http://community.skype.com/t5/Linux/Why-is-Skype-on-Linux-still-so-
grossly-out-of-date/m-p/4314193)

[http://thevarguy.com/open-source-application-software-
compan...](http://thevarguy.com/open-source-application-software-
companies/skype-linux-breaks-people-blame-microsoft-are-we-surprise)

Also, I added $10 skype credit a while back when I needed to make few
international phone calls. I used about $3 of it. The rest $7 was in my
account for a while and then it disappeared. What's the reasoning behind that?
It's totally unacceptable to have credits disappear like that. In that same
period I added $10 to Viber as well and I still have $8 remaining on it even
after 1.5 years.

------
sand500
Switched from Skype to Discord for gaming. No regrets.

~~~
Syrup-tan
The unofficial API community is also really great, and there are a plethora of
libraries to choose from to get something working quickly.

[https://blog.discordapp.com/the-robot-revolution-has-
unoffic...](https://blog.discordapp.com/the-robot-revolution-has-unofficially-
begun/)

------
gdulli
Small anecdote about Skype specifically as an instant messenger.

When eBay acquired Skype there was little willing adoption of it for IMs at
eBay corporate. AIM (through whatever client) was the de facto standard.
Management didn't like this but also didn't have the courage to say, "Skype is
what you're using now."

So there was an embarrassingly transparent mandate from "IT" that AIM was
disallowed due to a vague (but critical) "security" concern. That somehow
persisted across versions and years.

This was sort of my experience of working at eBay and my impression of its
management in a nutshell.

Skype may be good for voice/video, I don't know. It's a terrible instant
messenger. The only one I ever used where I had to worry about it swallowing
messages and couldn't just assume the recipient got them.

------
ljw1001
If slack is worth $8 billion.... Sorry, There's no way to complete that
sentence. How about, Slack is worth about as much as Basecamp.

------
sandworm101
Skype has dropped linux. SKype is now dead to me and those I work with.
Dustbin of history.

------
intrasight
All my enterprise clients are MSFT shops. They will make due with whatever
collaboration tools that MSFT provides. Also, they would never use a product
from a company named "Slack".

~~~
jjawssd
Why wouldn't they?

~~~
intrasight
doesn't sound "enterprisey"

------
SeanDav
I would be a fan of Skype, if they did not route everything through government
spyware.

~~~
reitanqild
While I'm not sure that's what they do they DID get caught red-handed a couple
of years ago snooping on urls sent over Skype.

~~~
Phlarp
"route everything through government surveillance" is perhaps a bit too blunt,
but let's not forget that Microsoft was the founding member of the PRISM
program.

And Prism or no Prism-- Skype was a $1bn present from Microsoft to the
intelligence community. Even if they never snooped on anything (we know they
have) they did re-engineer skype in a manner that allows it to be subject to
more traditional CALEA trap and trace techniques, as well a numerous side
channel attacks and traffic interception. The "secret sauce" of Skype in the
very beginning was P2P connections, which MSFT immediately removed.

~~~
Zekio
Isn't skype still P2P?? otherwise why would it have an option to disallow P2P
between you and people you don't know?

~~~
pmlnr
[http://www.zdnet.com/article/skype-ditched-peer-to-peer-
supe...](http://www.zdnet.com/article/skype-ditched-peer-to-peer-supernodes-
for-scalability-not-surveillance/)

------
dbg31415
Woah woah woah. Comparing Slack to Skype... it's not just apples to oranges...
it's comparing Iron Man's Jarvis to a rotary telephone.

Slack is how we bring together all of our project data -- from all of our
tools -- in one place, and how we automate tasks like daily Scrum and contract
creation. Slack asks us, "Hey what are you working on today? What are your
blockers?" and builds an automated list. We can ask Slack to do work for us,
like, "Slack, create an MSA from our template and send it Joe at Clientcorp."
A million other uses. Slack is great and saving SO much time.

Skype sits unused and spams me every month asking me to put in more quarters
for some bizarre concept of "long-distance" phone calls. And honestly the UX
is so horrible, it's going to take a total re-launch to make it something I'd
even consider installing again.

------
sosuke
Why not build one? Why keep trying to lift Skype to this purpose? It seems if
they really wanted to they could make a good product.

~~~
cissou
it could cost more than 8bn to build one, and would take time too. Slack is
right there, already built.

~~~
AngrySkillzz
If it costs you more than $8bil to write a chat app then you're doing
something wrong.

~~~
trott
I'd like to know what people think developing something like Slack should
cost, and why MS thought $8e9 was a potentially reasonable valuation.

~~~
st3v3r
Keep in mind that the acquisition value is not just the code. There's also the
brand, the userbase, the engineers, and not having to actually do it
themselves.

------
sergiotapia
I wonder why Discord isn't more popular, it's basically Slack with voice chat
baked in that works really well. All of your favorite Slack shortcuts work
exactly the same. Even pressing the Up arrow key to edit your last message.

I guess the 'gamer' branding hurts it's potential use in the workplace.

~~~
vehementi
Yeah it's heavily gamer focused. Not that it coulnd't be used for business.

Slack is a lot more featureful though and you can do cool integrations.

Discord has no search ability.

Discord is also conspicuously free and I think everyone's waiting to see if
they implode or not.

I love Discord.

~~~
jhgg
>Discord has no search ability.

Yet. It's in our pipeline.

------
Ono-Sendai
Does anyone else find it bizarre that what is effectively a web-based IRC is
(possibly) worth $8B?

~~~
apocalyptic0n3
It's far more than web-based IRC and has a substantial userbase, a significant
number of whom are paying for the service. Given the failures MS has had with
communication tools in the past, I'm not surprised at all they mulled an $8B
acquisition of Slack

~~~
vpkaihla
> It's far more than web-based IRC

How exactly?

~~~
avtar
Mobile clients, persistent chat history when switching clients/devices,
search, @mentions notify you when you're away from your desk, and easy
integrations with lots of services.

P.S. I mainly use IRC everyday :)

~~~
pmlnr
Which is IRC + ZNC + Andchat + bots...

~~~
gisenberg
This echoes the "couldn't you just replicate Dropbox with x + y + z ..."
mindset of the past.

~~~
drdaeman
Why the past?

I tried to use Dropbox but it just didn't have what I wanted it to have. So, I
find it to be not only replaceable, but awfully inferior to the x+y+z-style
solutions.

------
brianbreslin
Doesnt microsoft alredy own yammer? Wouldnt thatbe a better fit to compete
with slack?

------
StreamBright
They should just ditch all of their efforts to try to make Skype or Lync
working and either start it over or acquire a company that can do voice/video
calls and text chat reliably like WeChat for example. Skype is such a tragic
product that I can hardly believe that anybody would using it in a corporate
environment if it wasn't MS who were pushing for it. One interesting question
that comes up in my mind: is group voice calling a really hard problem to
solve? At this stage I am much more likely to use a simple phone conference
than Skype because it works just so much better. Curious what others think.

------
ThomPete
Before I started to use Slack more frequently I was in a Skype chat group with
some ex colleagues of mine. We simply started a group chat and just kept it
consistent.

It was actually a pretty easy and great way to share links and discuss things.
We even toyed with some ideas around a link grabber for alle the stuff we
shared there. We only moved to Slack because of better support for link
sharing and some other things.

If Microsoft can't figure out how to turn Skype into a Slack competitor they
are more than welcome to contact me. I have plenty of ideas on how to to do
that :)

------
hacknat
Slack works on Linux, which is a big deal for some teams. Before people jump
on me, stating, "Linux market share for dev machines is too small to matter."
Consider that there are some members of organizations who need to use it. Is
an org going to leave those users out in the dark? Slack working on Linux is
quite convenient for my team, which has some Linux and OSX users. Lync and
Skype on Linux just don't work (at least, I couldn't get them working).

------
tanv_nadkarni
Microsoft should have been the most natural choice of in-team communication.
While their sales team was busy selling crappy software to large companies and
ignoring small ones someone built a kick-ass product called Slack.

It does not make sense for Microsoft to buy slack. Microsoft already has the
sales muscle to reach millions. What Microsoft does not have is a product that
can compete with Slack. They should build it ASAP as part of their Office
suite. Skype is not that solution.

------
chrisgd
No one in here mentions Jabber. . .

------
Sealy
This situation strangely reminds me of MSN Messenger for anyone old enough to
remember that. It ended in failure. Most blamed Microsoft's management for it.

------
andrewguy9
And all the slack users breathed a sigh of relief. Their most beloved tool
wasn't destroyed by an accident prone behemoth.

------
usaphp
I keep hearing over and over about how horrible Skype is. I've been using it
for over 5 years (on OS X) now and I have not noticed any issues, and the
improvements to UI over the years made it really nice and user friendly. So I
don't really know if people who complain about it actually used it in the
recent years or not.

~~~
gregmac
I've been recently (eg, had a meeting yesterday) interacting with a company
that uses Skype for meetings, and I think by far, it's the worst meeting
software I've used (vs Webex, joinme, Gotomeeting, etc).

It takes several minutes to get things connected and working -- especially the
first time, when you have to install something (not sure if it's the full
skype client?) to even view the meeting. Screen sharing has some really stupid
flaws, like not being able to go full screen on the client-side. Phone
integration _usually_ works, once you find the right number in a list of
several dozen phone numbers (not sure if this is Skype or the business using
it), though it shows you in the meeting as a separate "unknown" user (even if
you've also joined via PC).

~~~
usaphp
I think the problem is that they are using a wrong tool for the job, because
of that you are comparing Skype to a meeting software, but Skype is not
focused on being a meeting software, it is focused on friends and family video
calls by proving a simple interface and basic functions.

~~~
gregmac
[http://www.skype.com/en/business/](http://www.skype.com/en/business/)

~~~
douche
That's the confusion. That page is selling two completely different products,
which some brainiac in Marketing decided to lump under the same banner.

------
Ensorceled
Please focus on Skype, it's a mess.

Now that we are no longer using HipChat, the buggiest application I use on a
regular basis is Skype.

~~~
bliti
Would mind commenting on why you do not use HipChat anymore? Curious...

~~~
modoc
I still really like HipChat but the latest versions have been unbelievably
bad. Connection issues, message delivery issues, users showing up as offline
who are actually online, etc... If they don't fix things soon we're going to
have switch to Slack.

~~~
bliti
I've been having the same issues. It's almost unusable. A pity because we've
been using it for years.

------
pfarnsworth
What a disaster that would have been. The people that use Slack are much
younger than the enterprise customers that Microsoft has. It would have been
another failed acquisition.

Plus we used Slack and moved aggressively back to HipChat. I thought it was
fine but there's no real difference between Slack and Hipchat.

~~~
rb808
Xbox & minecraft users are often much youger that Slack users and that
acquisition worked well.

------
giancarlostoro
Slack might of made a great addition to Visual Studio and Visual Studio
Code... I really don't want to see it happen though, they need to fix up some
odd security problems with Skype and the sluggishness of Skype is really bad,
used to be somewhat bad, but lately it's gotten worse.

------
herbst
Skype is old and broken on Linux, and the worst battery nightmare on Android.
I could not even use it if i wanted to.

Slack on the other side just works everywhere i could ever need it, including
a lot of automation tasks.

How could skype even get popular with the crappy API they offer?

------
horsecaptin
I've always thought of Skype as a personal product that was also used for
business, and Slack as a primarily business oriented product. I'm afraid if
Skype gets more features rammed into it for groupware, then it'll be even more
bloated.

~~~
gffrd
You, me, and everyone else.

That's Microsoft's issue with Skype: they fail to realize that the marketplace
determines what a product is.*

If you took a well-known, purpose-built apartment building and converted it in
to offices, you know what people would say? "Why would I set up my office in
an apartment building?"

Regardless of how good they could make Skype, it's always going to be Skype:
the cool thing you use to talk to your brother who's living in Costa Rica for
the year.

— *That being said, if you've done your due diligence and really understand
your audience, you can do a better job at creating a product that directs the
attention of the user toward the thing you'd prefer.

------
jaysoncena
It would be really cool if they can make Skype easier for app integration
similar to Slack. Also, if they can update their Linux client.

Anyone tried running Skype for windows on wine?

------
perseusprime11
This is just sad. Slack and Github fit into their strategy perfectly as they
both tie into productivity. This must be another one of those bad moves from
Bill Gates.

------
0x0
The day MS buys Slack and assimilates it into "Skype for X" is the day I
cancel our business subscription and rotate our credit cards.

------
derFunk
First Microsoft destroyed Skype, now they want to destroy Slack? Hopefully not
gonna happen.

We're in the process of moving away from Skype, which we used for 10 years in
the company, to Slack. Partners went away from Skype to Flowdock and Hipchat.

Instead of buying Slack, Microsoft should invest to make Skype great again.
Yet I'm not sure if this is still possible after they broke all features Skype
excelled at. Or use the money to found a new competitor. But please don't buy
Slack. This can only fail.

------
pmlnr
It would be about time for Skype to get a serious competition and force M$ to
fix it, especially for non-Windows platform.

------
xufi
I wonder how SKype will go in to Business use. Perhaps it'll be like Google
Hangouts

------
pcmaffey
The real question is, would Stewart B. take the offer?

Anyone who cares about their product knows a sale to MS is a death knell for
innovation. Becoming a hit like Slack is such a rare opportunity. I mean, why
are you in this business if not for a chance to build a transformative
platform? Which is what Slack has right now, a chance.

~~~
harryh
My gut says that Stewart doesn't take an 8B offer. But that, of course, raises
the question of what number he does take. It's very hard to know.

~~~
shostack
It also raises the question of how much ownership he retains of the company
and how much of this would actually be his decision (vs. his investors looking
for an exit) given that they've raised a Series E round and have taken ~$340M
in funding [1].

[1]
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/slack#/entity](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/slack#/entity)

~~~
harryh
Remember that the Series E round was on a very large valuation. He surely gave
up a much greater % in the early days when the company was still working on a
game.

------
perseusprime11
Not to worry. They will buy it when it becomes $20B. Old companies move slow.

~~~
SinomaSo
Cisco might be more interested to buy Slack if their Lync competitor called
"Cisco Spark" fails.

------
a-dub
"Skype for Business" has some of the worst UX I have ever seen.

------
taf2
When the number is over 1 billion the answer is always yes... Mmmk

------
myth_buster
Yikes... Being acquired by big CO is the equivalent of "we sent buster to your
granny upstate"...

------
boredatnight12
Classic Microsoft.

------
aabajian
Came for comments about Lync, was not disappointed.

------
bigpoppa
a bargain if you ask me

------
sirmike_
Please no, stay away. I thought those kinda days at MSFT were over ...

------
a2tech
And Skype will continue to be terrible. Just installed Office 2013 with its
included 'Skype for Business' and boy does it look terrible. Its got a
distinct MSN Messenger from the early 2000's vibe going on. Lots of buttons,
very bright color choices (lots of white and bright blue).

~~~
nickpeterson
To be fair, that is rebadged Lync, not really skype. And yes, lync is
terrible.

