Turn on, tune in, cash out: Hipster chat plat Slack whacks beardie millennials with features

Hipster-friendly chat app Slack frantically wants to turns itself into a development environment to fend off the Microsoft juggernaut. This week Slack added a "Workflow Builder" among other features. In February, it introduced Block Kit APIs to encourage third-party developers to integrate deeper into the avocado-masher's …

[Anonymous Coward]

"Enterprise-grade Slack costs businesses from £60 to over £100 per user per year, while Microsoft's shameless clone is free,..."

and this is one of the ways the existing behemoths kill new and interesting developments.

[Natalie Gritpants Jr]

Just because Microsoft is eating your lunch it doesn't mean you're interesting.

[Anonymous Coward]

although that is true I don't think you can say that about Slack; otherwise, it wouldn't have had the take up that it had.

[Anonymous Coward]

Slack has no chance

Now that Microshaft is apparently worth more than $1T.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-48050105

IMHO, that is $999B too much but what do I know eh?

All I do know is that I've not spent a bent penny even indirectly with them since 2005.

Their Enterprise 'Walled Garden' makes Apple's effort seem really, really puny.

[Is It Me]

Re: Slack has no chance

So no devices that use FAT32, or exFAT as they will have paid a license to MS for them?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Slack only supports five display languages right now."

I assume that two of these will be Klingon and High Valeryian

[Blue Pumpkin]

I liked it better when it was IRC ...

[Mike 16]

MSFT has experience

AFAICT, the entire purpose of Slack is to destroy productivity, with the equivalent of of a PHB hovering over your shoulder at all times, while klaxons sound at random intervals carefully tuned to maximize anxiety. MSFT has decades of experience at this sort of demotivation, from LookOut! to Clippy, so should have an Edge.

[bombastic bob]

Re: MSFT has experience

recently started a new contract, and they use slack. so I did it on an android device (follow invite link, install app), and it has its use but I need shared files on a desktop machine [not on a slab] and so it made more sense to use github to share files [that and set up a source repository].

Maybe if it were more like IRC, and less 1:1 personal messaging... then again I haven't used it enough to understand all of the features (yet).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: MSFT has experience

Anything that distracts the hordes of bearded ex-barista man-child web "developers" from foisting their cut'n'paste stack overflown buggy shite on us can only be a good thing. See the Indy site for a fine example of all that can go wrong when you let the beards near the internet.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft, on the other hand, knows all about keeping developers happy."

Lol. Is this an example of your crazy British humour?

[Jed T]

Alternatively

Good thing no-one has heard of Discord yet either.

[A2HostingUserEnraged]

Somewhere along the way towards these bells and whistles, the handy link to open the local folder you just downloaded a file to disappeared, I mean, 2 or 3 clicks elsewhere and there it is but that, coupled with a smattering of "Lets move some interface stuff around, that feature has been there way too long" recently and having now slapped a massive search box where I used to grab the title bar to move the window... grrr.... I mean, when the search box gets focus it opens an even wider new box that covers half the messages below with suggestions I don't want anyway so why does the search box on the header bar need to be so massive...

grrr... grumble mumble whycanttheyleavethebloodythingalone..