
Dear Microsoft [from Slack] - kelnos
https://slackhq.com/dear-microsoft-8d20965d2849
======
taspeotis
Previous discussion [1].

    
    
        Dear Microsoft (slackhq.com)
        87 points by davidhariri 11 hours ago
    

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12855291](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12855291)

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dawnerd
I use slack every day and have no problems with it. This letter has so much
wrong

> First, and most importantly, it’s not the features that matter.

Yes, yes it very much is. Do you think people would use Slack if it was bare
bones?

> The revolution that has led to millions of people flocking to Slack has
> been, and continues to be, driven by something much deeper.

I have no idea what this "revolution" is. What exactly is the deeper meaning?

> Second, an open platform is essential

Says the team making a closed source app with an api. Nothing Microsoft can't
do.

> We’re glad you’re going to be helping us define this new product category

Group chat isn't new.

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ranebo
I'm not a user of Slack (solo dev) so I guess I'm not the target audience for
this. But I am I wrong in feeling that this comes off as completely lame?

To me it reads as weirdly premature desperation conveyed in a condescending
tone.

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PeCaN
Yeah, it's really weirdly passive-aggressive and lame. Condescending is a good
way to describe it.

I use Slack in a small 5-person company and generally dislike it. The desktop
app is horrible. Why does a chat app need 400MB of RAM anyway? It also doesn't
let me customize the font—or really much of anything—not a dealbreaker, but a
bit annoying. So basically I use Slack in a browser, which is at least usable.
Entirely and easily replaceable though.

~~~
chrismcb
Isn't the desktop app just a chrome browser plugin? With its own starting
point?

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panzerboy
It's an Electron app.

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feedjoelpie
That was a lot of words just to publicly display that they're scared. Who
approved this PR disaster?

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pscsbs
This is one of the more bizarre press releases I've read in a while.

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mikerg87
I'm reminded of when Apple welcomed IBM to the PC a business.

[http://blog.vdcresearch.com/.a/6a0115714871cc970c01a3fd332bd...](http://blog.vdcresearch.com/.a/6a0115714871cc970c01a3fd332bda970b-pi)

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464192002d7fe1c
Translation: we just collectively shit ourselves.

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SteveNuts
That genuinely left me scratching my head. What a weird passive aggressive
press release.

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salmonet
I'm not entirely sure what the point of the release is, it also feels sort of
passive aggressive to me

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untilHellbanned
Slack = Dropbox. They don't own the stack. Their chat app is worthless to all
the real companies, i.e., non-SV funny money (which btw is 99.9% of the
world's purchasing power), who are living in msft or google products and don't
want to click into some incompatible app they won't be able to rally others
around because it's not recommended by IT.

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foolfoolz
i think it's funny their final point was "slack is here to stay".. as if their
explosive growth over the last year - which involved many companies switching
out their existing chat service for slack - could not be repeated next year to
another destination.

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cproto_
I had no idea Microsoft released a chat client until I read this article.

Microsoft should send Slack some flowers and a thank you card for the free
marketing.

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mxuribe
I'll admit that i don't use slack...but it would have come across as more
respectable if they hadn't injected a tad bit too much passive aggressiveness.
I mean if this was written in the late 90's/early 2000s, perhaps I might have
agreed with them. But have they seen what microsoft is up to? I mean,
microsoft is working with linux...working. with. freakin. linux! Microsoft.
with. linux! ;-)

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SirensOfTitan
This note sounds like the kind of passive-aggressive stuff I write and
subsequently discard to feel better about some dispute with a coworker.

There's such an air of condescension here, all from a team that didn't even
design its own flagship product
([http://metalab.co/projects/slack/](http://metalab.co/projects/slack/)).

I feel bearish on slack.

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farm_code
I came to know about Microsoft teams only by this post. I see better value
proposition with whole office 365 offering.

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untilHellbanned
I would short Slack. Shark jumping moment.

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ChuckMcM
Just yammering about upcoming competition :-)

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amckinlay
What the heck?

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payne92
Weird "marketing".

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kovrik
Epic fail

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throwaway110116
haughty

