Posts by pwjone1

Salesforce: There's no more Slack left to cut

Slack is good, but...

I like Slack, it is in many ways the market maker in the group or team chat realtime communication segment, but I have to say that Discord, with the exception of threads and thread viewing (very useful if the chat goes into multiple topics), has by and large caught and in some cases passed Slack in terms of basic functionality. Discord is just generally faster, the reply function is better, etc. It lags a bit on formatting capabilities, but has most of the basics. Microsoft Teams remains a kind of distant 3rd, I think most people use it because they get it with Microsoft365/Office365, so bundling, and it is getting better also, but if you had to pay for it, maybe not. Slack remains ahead on Bots and APIs. So I think Salesforce can cut Slack's funding and staffing, but it risks killing it, or at least making it lose further market share, so if that is the direction, it should probably look around and see if it would not make more sense to just sell or spin it off. There are some obvious potential buyers, Google for example has some group chat capability, but it is pretty awful, so they might jump at the chance to pick up Slack. Or perhaps Meta, again an instance where their group chat is pretty crap compared to Slack, but I am not sure Meta understands the market segment, though they must comprehend that a lot of people have pulled content out of Facebook to Slack or similar, striving for more responsiveness, privacy, and no ads. But I think for Salesforce, it is in terms of Slack, invest or die. This is not something layoffs and off-shoring can fix.

Unlucky for some: Meta chops 13% of global workforce

Not to state the obvious, but the Facebook Aps are crap...

OK, I have a lot of sympathy for the 13% of Meta/Facebook employees, it is never great to be let go in a recession or whatever this is. Hopefully they will be able to find jobs.

But I guess I will kind of state the obvious, aside from the investment in Metaverse that may (or may not) pan out, the real problem with Facebook is that it is kind of crap, the competition has caught and passed it, and the push of advertising and artificial engagement is kind of over the top, so of course people have moved elsewhere. If anything, the exodus is probably just going to get worse, as having laid off a lot of developers, it will be tough for Facebook to come back. Facebook Live never really caught up to YouTube for public meetings, and tools like Zoom, Cisco Webex, and Microsoft Teams are just a ton better at group or person-to-person meetings (and mostly people get Teams for nearly free, because of Microsoft's bundling with Microsoft/Office365). Tools like Slack (or MS Teams) are just way more productive than a Facebook Group for Group chats, as you have #channel type topic organization (Facebooks limitations there make it next to useless, a kind of graft onto its Blog format), and the discussions can be done via apps that are a heck of a lot more sophisticated (don't just tell you someone has posted to Facebook) and run on a lot more platforms and run without ads. And with these other tools, you don't get into all these privacy problems, so you can do private group or business type things with them, and you do not run into the outright resistance a lot of users have towards getting on Facebook at all. Messenger is kind-of-sort-of OK as a group chat vehicle, but often you run into problems where someone you want in the group chat refuses to join Facebook, so you are off to Slack or Signal or iMessage or something else with better privacy (and apps). Yes, Apple kind of gave Facebook revenue that little nudge off the cliff, but Facebook was in denial that its problems with Privacy were going to bite, it was going to eventually Apple or Google or maybe even the governments that said enough-is-enough, you don't get to slurp everything up (especially without telling people). So some of this was inevitable. Facebook really needs to get back to the basics. If you want users to return, Facebook needs to return to providing a one-place type of integration of much better apps than it is doing now. Otherwise, over time Facebook will go the way of the Dodo bird (or at least Myspace or AIM).

IBM withholds healthcare subsidies from some retirees

IBM Dropping Original Medicare Options for Retirees

I, like many retired IBMers, have been trying to puzzle out the IBM retiree medical plan changes. I fall into the category where IBM set aside some money in a HRA (this came about when they did away with full retiree coverage), I lose access to that money unless I switch to one of the IBM/United Health Care Medicare Advantage plans -- there are two, one free with pretty high copays and limits, one that you pay a fair amount for but it reduces the copays and has a fairly low maximum on medical (not on drugs though). Older workers were getting $3k/year to cover medical, that similarly goes away, they have to switch to IBM/UHC Medicare advantage, though they pay less and get a one year bridge. IBM set up these HRAs in part after getting sued for age discrimination, they were supposed to offset losing retiree medical coverage. I cannot really complain, newer workers are if anything worse off, it is really a problem with the USA's medical systems and allowing accounting means to take back previous commitments. One survey in the Facebook group shows quite a few IBMers will drop the subsidy in order to stay with Original Medicare (+Medigap), so they can keep their doctors and specialist hospitals (cancer, heart, joint surgery, etc.). I will give IBM some credit, though there appears to be a class action (or two) law suit(s) brewing, but they did put some effort into providing something decent, the Medicare Advantage (MA) plans being offered are PPOs instead of HMOs, and they pay out of network at Medicare + 15% (which is the max they are allowed to bill if they take Medicare), so there is some chance you can get re-imbursed or get a doctor to take the deal, though there are some anomalies where a lot of doctors and specialist hospitals just refuse to deal. It is just that for whatever reason, IBM took away subsidies if you stick with Original Medicare.

Mayo Clinic Rochester is in-network for 2023 under IBM/UHC Medicare Advantage. Mayo Clinic Florida, Mayo Clinic Arizona specifically are not. Same for MD Anderson, Sloan Kettering, quite a number of specialist hospitals (and doctors/dentists) will not take Medicare Advantage from UHC.

Microsoft tempts G Suite customers with 60% discount

Microsoft take-out offer on G Suite users:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/10/22927587/microsoft-365-discount-offer-google-g-suite-legacy-customers

They understand the gap in offerings apparently better than Google.

Re: Office 365

>because you have to make a continuing never-ending stream of payments to M$ 365 days a year.

Generally with G Suite you had to pay Domain charges every year, that worked out to something like $10/year, so it was not entirely free. But with the forced migration to Google Workspace, they started charging $12/month per user, or $144 per year per user, as versus Microsoft's $100 per year for up to 6 users for Microsoft 365 Family. I don't begrudge Google getting paid reasonably for what it provides, fair is fair, but it really does seem out of line with what it is charging. I have to figure out how many accounts I have, but if it works out to six for the family (and that is probably close, may have to knock off a couple), my costs would be $864/year, or 8 times more expensive than Microsoft. I do not like paying Microsoft monthly/annually, granted I still do because Office is better than what Google Docs portion of Workspace, and if Google came up with something that was a Google Workspace Lite (just e-mail) I would be happy to pay it $100/year for 6 users (Microsoft's price). But Google is really putting the thumbscrews to Family owners on its pricing. Its offering is aimed more at big businesses (though I suspect they then negotiate the seat cost down, same as everyone does with Microsoft). |

Small Business owners are kind of in the same boat. For a lot, they will provide e-mail to every employee, but probably the majority will never use the Google Workspace functions beyond that. Not like you need to give all that to the counter staff and delivery folks. Only management and staff need the full functionality.

Re: Google Family

I would agree.

It really does seem that Google neglected the family (and small business) users of G Suite, which is ironic as for a time, that was the recommended solution for families. I have both G Suite and Office 365 accounts, and I prefer GMail as an implementation, but Google's forced upgrades to Workspace (and drastic increase in consequent costs) is a real quandary. I really, really do not want to shift e-mail addresses, but a family plan on Microsoft 365 costs me $100/year for 6 addresses, vs something like $864/year at Google for the equivalent. Further, Microsoft has put up new migration info:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/mailbox-migration/migrating-imap-mailboxes/migrate-g-suite-mailboxes

and from a preliminary read-thru, appears to include mail migration. I have used Microsoft Web mail, I prefer Google's, but the gap has closed a lot over the years. The rest of the apps (Google Docs vs Microsoft Office), really Microsoft is the much better choice there, they are defacto industry standards, and there are aspects (like Teams) where Google just really has no equivalent.

Hopefully Google will realize the error of its ways, and respond competitively to Microsoft's obvious take-out effort, by providing a Google Workspace Lite for families (based on a custom domain + Gmail) at a competitive price.

IBM insiders say CEO Arvind Krishna downplayed impact of email troubles, asked for a week to sort things out

Re: 4.2 billion emails a week?

A lot of e-mails are related to automation and so are never technically read by humans unless something goes wrong or you are checking results. Granted, HR and the executives are rather bad about filling your inbox with drivel, but what company does not have that? [and don't tell me Google or Apple or Microsoft, as I know people at all three, so...]. The are efforts to convert the automation and so forth over to Slack and other methods (Dashboard type things), in effect modernizing some, these mail problems will probably be a "nudge", might be good in the long run.

FYI: Today's computer chips are so advanced, they are more 'mercurial' than precise – and here's the proof

Error Checking and modern processor design

To some degree, undetected errors are to be more expected as chip lithography evolves (14nM to 10nM to 7nM to 6 and 5 or 3nM). There is a history of dynamic errors (crosstalk, XI, and other causes), and the susceptibility to these gets worse as the device geometries get smaller -- just fewer electrons that need to leak. Localized heating also becomes more of a problem the denser your get. Obviously Intel has struggled to get to 10nM, potentially also a factor. But generally x86 (and Atom) processor designs have not had much error checking, the design point is that the cores "just work", and as that gradually has become more and more problematical, it may be that Intel/AMD/Apple/etc. will need to revisit their approach. IBM, on higher end servers (z), generally includes error checking, this is done via various techniques like parity/ECC on internal data paths and caches, predictive error checking (for example, on a state machine, you predict/check the parity or check bits on the next state), and in some cases full redundancy (like laying down two copies of the ALU or cores, comparing the results each cycle). To be optimal, you also need some level of software recovery, and there are varying techniques there, too. Added error checking hardware also has its costs, generally 10-15% and a bit of cycle time, depending on how much you put in and how exactly it is in implemented. So in a way, it is not too much of a surprise that Google (and others) have observed "Mercurial" results, any hardware designer would have shrugged and said "What did you expect? You get what you pay for."

HP's WebOS mess: When smartphone assets go toxic

And then again, maybe not...

While it seems logical enough to conclude that there will be some changes, as the smartphone market grows and matures, I'm not sure I'd just count Android out. They have more market share than anyone else these days. Google, with the acquisition of Motorola and the IBM patents, seems to have bullet proofed itself, and Oracle may have some difficulties doing much more then extracting some license fees. Or Google could just include the Java subset that they bypassed, probably doesn't matter on larger storage phones coming. One does wish that it kind of came down to the best phone OS winning, instead of all these patent wars.