So for a 1:1 comparison, let's consider the apps that MS has made in this space ...

WorldMaker · on Dec 2, 2020

Skype, Qik, Yammer, and Groove were all acquisitions. (None of Google's messenger churn has the excuse of being an acquisition.)

Yammer is a social network and if Yammer counts for Microsoft as a "chat app" then Google gets to add Buzz, Reader, Orkut, G+, Wave, etc to the list.

Groove wasn't exactly a chat app either. It was more the P2P bastard child of Lotus Notes (or a P2P relative of SharePoint, sort of, in Microsoft terms). Chat was a feature, but it wasn't the emphasis of the app, the emphasis was more on shared workspaces (folders, documents). Some ideas that have resurfaced elsewhere in O365 and even Teams, though not in the P2P way without big cloud internet services that Groove attempted.

Windows Meeting Space was the last rebrand of NetMeeting, apparently. There's also evidence according to Wikipedia that SharedView piggy backed on the Windows Meeting Space codebase and in some ways was a "trial version" of Windows Meeting Space with different internet services backing it and paid for by ads.

Kaizala is in the process of merging into Teams, and the Lync line (last Skype for Business) is considered to have already merged/migrated. (Except for support of on premises installs which still has a few more years on the clock. Another contrast to Google who has never supported on premises installs, much less for years after the projects died/moved on.)

Qik was a Skype off-shoot/relative.

jsnell · on Dec 3, 2020

> Yammer is a social network and if Yammer counts for Microsoft as a "chat app" then Google gets to add Buzz, Reader, Orkut, G+, Wave, etc to the list.

The list of supposed Google chat apps up the thread did in fact include both Buzz and Wave, so I'm just applying the same criteria. Hangouts was the chat part of G+, so I think it'd be double counting to include G+.

> Groove wasn't exactly a chat app either

Neither are Duo and Meet, which were in the list of supposed Google chat apps.

> Kaizala is in the process of merging into Teams, and the Lync line (last Skype for Business) is considered to have already merged/migrated

I don't understand. The entire thing we're supposed to be mocking Google for here is that they launch chat apps, and then force users to migrate away. Now you're saying that all these Microsoft ones don't count, because they've either already killed them and forced a migration, or are already in the process of doing so.

> Skype, Qik, Yammer, and Groove were all acquisitions. (None of Google's messenger churn has the excuse of being an acquisition.)

Fair enough that this is different. But first, note that when Google discontinues a product they got from an acquisition, HN does not consider that to be an exenuating circumstance. I think it's fair to apply the same policy here. And second, nobody forced Microsoft to buy Skype when they already had a popular app doing just the same thing, which they then killed to make room for Skype.

WorldMaker · on Dec 3, 2020

>> Groove wasn't exactly a chat app either

> Neither are Duo and Meet, which were in the list of supposed Google chat apps.

Duo and Meet were video chat apps, which seems to be a part of "chat apps". You did include video chat apps/meeting/conference apps in the Microsoft list.

Groove is more like P2P Google Docs is maybe the closest Google analog. You wouldn't include Google Docs as a chat app would you? (Although I do know some folks that use it as such.)

>> Kaizala is in the process of merging into Teams, and the Lync line (last Skype for Business) is considered to have already merged/migrated

> I don't understand. The entire thing we're supposed to be mocking Google for here is that they launch chat apps, and then force users to migrate away. Now you're saying that all these Microsoft ones don't count, because they've either already killed them and forced a migration, or are already in the process of doing so.

I wasn't saying that they don't count, I was simply furthering the conversation on exactly that sort of semantic question, and relatedly also this one:

> Hangouts was the chat part of G+, so I think it'd be double counting to include G+.

While the clients are nothing alike and there's a backcompat break in the servers, Lync/S4B provided the foundations for the tech that became Teams' voice and video chat. Does that make Lync the "chat part" of Teams? (Hangouts was also a briefly separate "product" before G+ and then again briefly after.)

Kaizala I don't know anything about directly, but what I was reading suggested that it has a ton of features, especially for bandwidth limited networks, that have never been a part of Teams before whenever the merger is supposed to happen and those features are added to Teams. When those features merge, does that make Kaizala a part of Teams? Supposedly (according to sources cited by Wikipedia) Microsoft has even been considering a "powered by Kaizala" sub-branding on those features, for the target users. If there is a "Kaizala part" of Teams, is that double counting?

> And second, nobody forced Microsoft to buy Skype when they already had a popular app doing just the same thing, which they then killed to make room for Skype.

Windows Live Messenger and Skype lived side-by-side for several years and Microsoft at the time was criticized by confusingly marketing both and keeping both alive. From what I saw as an outside observer, WLM died by its own hand and a death of a thousand papercuts. Skype, too, seems to be on the long path of killing itself with self-inflicted papercuts. I do admit both of those sad tales seem politically similar to what we observe of Google's chat efforts. That's two products I definitely feel are comparable to all that.

Nition · on Dec 2, 2020

I want to see a whole organisation on Microsoft Comic Chat.

jsnell · on Dec 2, 2020

Would it be better or worse than doing it on Microsoft V-Chat?

giancarlostoro · on Dec 2, 2020

Well it is just an IRC client that spams garbage other IRC clients ignore.