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Microsoft Teams Launches To Take on Slack in the Workplace (theverge.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the microsoft-teams dept.

Microsoft today launched its team collaboration app called Microsoft Teams. The app, which competes with Slack, is available in beta starting today. Microsoft describes the app as a "chat-based workspace in Office 365." The Verge adds:Microsoft is, of course, integrating Teams deeply into Office and Skype. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote are all built-into Microsoft Teams, alongside meetings with Skype for Business. For businesses truly living in a Microsoft world, there's also integration with SharePoint, Power BI, and Planner. Just like Slack, you can search across people, files, and chats, and Microsoft is using its Exchange integration to provide notifications. You can create tabs that integrate with other cloud services, alongside tailored channels and even custom memes throughout chats. Microsoft is also making Teams extensible with open APIs and its own bot framework. Microsoft demonstrated Twitter integrations at its event, where you can push messages from particular Twitter accounts into chat rooms, alongside the ability to create quick polls, or share custom meme images. One of the more interesting features is Microsoft's Skype integration, and the ability for chat room members to drop in and out of persistent video calls to gather for projects or a quick chat. Microsoft is allowing Office 365 customers preview the Microsoft Teams service today, in 181 countries. Microsoft plans to include Microsoft Teams in all Office 365 Business and Enterprise suites, with general availability slated for early 2017. Microsoft is also opening its developer preview program today, with 150 integrations expected at launch early next year, alongside 70 connectors and 85 bots.Slack, naturally isn't pleased with the existence of Microsoft Teams. In a full-page ad on the New York Times today, the company attempted to mock Microsoft. Update: 11/02 18:10 GMT: Microsoft says it doesn't have any plans for a free or consumer offering of Teams,

75 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Great! Competition FTW! by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I doubt this is something my work would use because we're a Google Docs + Slack shop. Still, I wish Microsoft well in this. I like Slack but I want them to be on their toes and competitive, not just resting on "way better than HipChat" and calling it a day.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    1. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      not just resting on "way better than HipChat"

      Am I the only one that pretty much HATES all these chat/IM and other intrusive constant on, constant communication apps and devices at work??

      I've been fortunate enough to be able to finally disable fucking MS Lync.

      With 100M people a day constantly trying to chat, I can't concentrate or get a fucking thing done.

      I finally got everyone to understand, that even though it shows me gone/disconnected, that they can email me, or call if it is truly an urgent need.

      I do ok with email since the communication is asynchronous, but with IM...someone is constantly wanting to chat about something, usually inane or something that could be solved by them if they gave it 5 extra seconds thought....and often it is multiple people at once.

      Maybe I just don't multi-task well....but anyway, I find that for the most part, constant communication with IM, at least for tech work...kills my productivity and ability to concentrate and work.

      Am I the only one that hates this?

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    2. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 3

      Maybe I just don't multi-task well....but anyway, I find that for the most part, constant communication with IM, at least for tech work...kills my productivity and ability to concentrate and work.

      With Slack, you can set Do Not Disturb and not get any notifications. I like working that way: I set DND and go into a 25 minute sprint. At the end, I look at Slack and see messages, dog videos, and whatever, then minimize it and go back to work for another 25 minutes.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    3. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      I don't even know what they are. Slack? I thought it meant goofing off, until today I find out it's a product. HipChat, it's that annoying thing on the side of Jira, and I can only assume it combines the worst of hipsters and chat programs in one dysfunction. Now Microsoft "Teams"? WTF does Microsoft know aobut teams, they barely have anyone there who knows how to program properly much less have enough of them to form a team.

    4. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      I've done that. 54 years and still no disturbances from Slack or HipChat.

    5. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by cacahuetes · · Score: 1

      I sympathize.

      The golden age of computers, for me, ended in 2007 when MS replaced Office 2003 with the ribbon version and their "new improved" equation editor. I'm still hoping for the day when Libre or Open office make an equation editor that works like MS's old one.

    6. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      I love how on a tech site we still have people who are proud of their ignorance of industry trends. Are you also that guy at parties who brags about not owning a TV and doesn't know any popular music?

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    7. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      With Slack, you can set Do Not Disturb and not get any notifications.

      Do you know of a way to do this with Lync?

      I don't know of a way to leave it up and not get people connecting to you.

      You can set it to "Appear Away", but that doesn't stop someone from messaging you and a notification pops up....the only way I've found is to just disconnect it totally.

      I don't know of a DND option on Lync.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    8. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      It takes more than half that time for many people to become fully engaged in a complex task

      That's debatable. It helps a lot if you have a short description of what you're trying to accomplish. Now, I wouldn't want to write a novel or an architecture document that way, but it's great for knocking out a dozen well-defined chores.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    9. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Text chat (XMPP/IRC) or phone for real-time communications when necessary/desired, and email for everything else has worked quite well for us for over a decade.

      And we are forbidden to use Skype for any work-related communications, since our management isn't keen on sharing everything we do with Microsoft.

      Suits me fine.

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    10. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      I can remember when Slack was a Linux distro. The marketing hipsters presumably can't.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    11. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by Spazztastic · · Score: 1

      Lync DND hides outlook notifications/sounds and notifies users who IM you that you are unavailable. The missed message then shows up in your Outlook inbox. Blocking both outlook AND Lync notifications is handy for when you really don't want distractions.

      --
      Posts not to be taken literally. Almost everything is sarcasm.
    12. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Maybe I just don't multi-task well....

      Well, don't feel bad; the evidence shows that nobody multi-tasks very well, and the ones that think they're great at it are worse than those who think they're bad at it.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    13. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      I'm an engineer. Social media stuff doesn't interest me, or the latest fads. Presumably if these "technologies" are important then we'll hear about them through normal channels without having to hang out in the same bars that novice programmers do. A thousand startups go bust every single day, why should I waste brain cells trying to keep track of them?

    14. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by Xabraxas · · Score: 1

      Teams is actually pretty nice for me. It's different than just a chat app. It is a great tool for collaboration. I am currently trying it out for a few projects where I have to work with a few different people and am loving it. I like being able to assign ToDo lists, integration with OneNote (which everyone on my team uses) and of course the Microsoft Office integration. Combine that with audio/video meetings and screen sharing and it pretty much solved all of our issues with missing software.

      So for example we had a kickoff meeting for a project we are working on for a client. I take notes with the OneNote component and everyone on my Team can see it right away. Then someone on my team can start a conversation based on the notes. Maybe I missed something or they need something clarified. We requested some docs from the client. I can upload them into Teams for everyone to access. I also needed to create some procedural documents. I can do that right from within teams or launch Word externally to do it. I could split up the workload and create separate tasks or lists for people on my team to tackle. I just started using it and have only scratched the service but it is exactly what I was looking for. We were doing most of this stuff already but with disparate software and no easy way to correlate all the necessary documents and information to its own channel.

      --
      Time makes more converts than reason
    15. Re:Great! Competition FTW! by Xabraxas · · Score: 1

      Skype for Business? I don't know about regular Skype but Skype for Business is a Tier D service compliance application, meaning it has the highest levels of encryption and compliance that Microsoft offers for online offerings. Your management is simply misinformed.

      --
      Time makes more converts than reason
  2. Those that don't study history by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Are doomed to repeat IRC.

    Add some pretty wrappers on top of IRC, make messages JSON if you insist on emjois. We've had bots for decades (for doing all sorts of everything). Live communication.

    Can someone please explain why Slack is different?

    1. Re:Those that don't study history by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're discounting the value of UI. You can drop Slack on a new employee and they can immediately click around and figure out how to use it. You and I like IRC and it's great. I also like Usenet, but that's a usability nightmare for anyone used to common web comment tools.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    2. Re:Those that don't study history by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 1

      Got it, need a pretty wrapper on top of a service that can do this:

      A network with 3000-4000 locally connected clients and 10000 open channels experiences a constant 1-4% CPU use with 70MB of RAM use. This won't go up drastically, but it will go up. Around 40000 local clients means you'll be expecting some 500MB of RAM.

    3. Re:Those that don't study history by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      IRC is fundamentally broken in that it requires you to be constantly online or you won't get the messages.
      People can't answer your questions if you went home for example (at least not if you log out of IRC or your client crashed).
      It is purely interactive, it does not work for semi-asynchronous communication.
      And no, IRC and email combined is still not a replacement (though I am using Skype as a reference, don't know if slack is any useful), since it doesn't allow you to switch to interactive communication at any time.

    4. Re:Those that don't study history by u801e · · Score: 1

      I also like Usenet, but that's a usability nightmare for anyone used to common web comment tools.

      Would that still be the case if one is using a desktop client application like Thunderbird or Windows Mail?

    5. Re:Those that don't study history by Xabraxas · · Score: 1

      I find these comments to be utterly stupid. Have you ever worked anywhere before? Can you possibly imagine non-engineers trying to use IRC for a collaboration tool? Even engineers can find the easy to use interface helpful. Look. I love IRC. I even ran an IRC server for a couple of years but insisting it is enough for most people is nonsense or people would have been using it in the office for collaboration for decades and it would be entrenched by now. There is a reason Slack and its competitors have blown up in recent years. It is a necessary niche. Now we are just waiting to see someone perfect the idea.

      --
      Time makes more converts than reason
    6. Re:Those that don't study history by Xabraxas · · Score: 1

      Companies became huge before computers. Should we just get rid of computers?

      --
      Time makes more converts than reason
  3. Likely MS Idea Meeting Minutes by PessimysticRaven · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Hey, you know what hasn't been super over-complicated yet? Interoffice communications. How can we further fuck this up?"
    "Let's make a version of Slack, but integrate it with Skype even more!"
    "Brilliant!"

    --
    Consistency is only a virtue if you're not a screw-up.
    1. Re:Likely MS Idea Meeting Minutes by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 2

      Nah, if you REALLY want to fuck up interoffice communications, you go big and go Lotus Notes. Slack is for cheap wannabes...

      --
      Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    2. Re:Likely MS Idea Meeting Minutes by Xabraxas · · Score: 1

      I am using Teams and it is actually pretty nice.

      --
      Time makes more converts than reason
  4. Re:Slack is terrible by ahabswhale · · Score: 5, Informative

    According to Slack, data is encrypted in transit and at rest: https://slack.com/security-pra...

    But feel free to make shit up.

    --
    Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
  5. Re:Slack is terrible by geek · · Score: 1

    According to Slack, data is encrypted in transit and at rest: https://slack.com/security-pra...

    But feel free to make shit up.

    Take their own words for it:
    https://twitter.com/slackhq/st...

  6. what is this garbage. by nimbius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    disclaimer: I am a greybeard admin in a dark cubicle in the basement.

    those who fail to understand *NIX are doomed to reinvent it, terribly. we have had powerhouse collaboration tools like IRC and jabber for decades now. Yet for some reason, in this foul year of our lord 2016, most admins do nothing more than cash a fat paycheck and install the latest vendor bloat. Whatever it was some C level or director saw at an airport billboard, or got stuffed into their carry on luggage during a gold course trade show, thats what we're punished to deploy and I for one am sick of it. Im sick of this cycle of endless corporate garbage that tries to re invent the wheel with more buzzwords.

    your collaborative tools should do one thing and do it well. you should spread the risk of outages by avoiding a single tool, not embracing it. And i cant believe im saying this, but in 2016 you should not be paying for voip or chat in the office.

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
    1. Re:what is this garbage. by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      The reason Slack is replacing IRC is because IRC is difficult for programmers to use.
      Not making that up.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:what is this garbage. by nimbius · · Score: 1

      pastebin, gitlab, github, gogit, gerrit, and a myriad of other programs should exist to help the programmer! chat is for chat...code collaboration should have its own dedicated ecosystem.

      --
      Good people go to bed earlier.
    3. Re:what is this garbage. by grumpy-cowboy · · Score: 2

      IRC is difficult for programmers to use?! What?! I hope you are joking.

      --
      Will $CURRENT_YEAR be the year of the Linux Desktop?
    4. Re:what is this garbage. by TedTschopp · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I will say this much. There is a reason a lot of corporations are going Cloud. It's because there are a lot of folks in the basement in IT who agree with you, and there are a lot of folks in the rest of the business who disagree and the rest of the business is starting to win out as the Cloud providers are starting to be able to pass audits more often than the on-premise data centers.

      --
      Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
    5. Re:what is this garbage. by Manic+Miner · · Score: 3, Informative

      The reason slack is great is exactly because it is IRC.. but WAY nicer to look at and *much* simpler to integrate with. TBH it's the integration ecosystem that wins the day. Writing bots to connect into Slack is super easy, and it already has "click to enable" integrations with so many other tools.

      Once it's all in once place it makes day to day work flow much easier and there are fewer context switches.

      --
      If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let'em go, because, man, they're gone.
    6. Re:what is this garbage. by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      IRC is difficult for programmers to use?! What?! I hope you are joking.

      Not at all. It seems like a joke, but there are many many programmers who can't figure something out. If it's not on stackoverflow, they are screwed.
      MAN pages give them trouble.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    7. Re:what is this garbage. by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      Or you can be in a Slack conversation with your team and say "hey, look at this...". Paste in a block of code. Slack renders it inline and syntax-highlighted. You discuss and move on to the next topic. That's vastly simpler than opening a browser to copy-and-paste a few lines so you can get a link to it.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    8. Re:what is this garbage. by Maritz · · Score: 1

      they taught you the one and only way to share code is by speaking it out loud? My god.

      yet claim you must pronounce everything out loud.

      Parent only said that in your head.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  7. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  8. Re:Which one spies the least on you and your team? by unixisc · · Score: 1

    Ask RMS & the FSF guys to make a GNU version of this - preferably AGPLed

  9. Re:Slack is terrible by ahabswhale · · Score: 1

    That's from 2014...

    Nice try.

    --
    Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
  10. Sounds like something to avoid... by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1

    ... if you are even slightly concerned about being locked into Microsoft.

  11. Re:Would you like to play a game? by unixisc · · Score: 2

    If you have multiple computers, Office 365 makes more sense. While it is subscription, you can automatically upgrade once a new version is out - in contrast to having to buy the new version w/ the standard edition (Granted, you may just as easily decide to hell w/ any upgrades). You get 5 subscriptions, and every Hotmail/Live/Outlook.com email you associate w/ it will get you 1TB of OneDrive storage to each account.

    Of course, if you are the never upgrade type, Office 2013 will work just fine

  12. Re:Slack is terrible by geek · · Score: 1

    2015 with updates in 2016. There is still no encryption at rest. Fanboy

  13. Re:Which one spies the least on you and your team? by geek · · Score: 1

    Already done
    https://www.mattermost.org/

  14. Because it mostly doesn't matter? by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    All your sensitive team collaboration on a third party server that sits unencrypted...... Why in the world do people use this?

    How "sensitive" is most people's collaboration really?

    Unless you are a spy operating in hostile territory no-one gives a rats ass about your amazing "collaboration" and the various animated gifs it is composed of.

    The fact is its damn hard to get anything done even knowing each other, for a third party to pull much useful out of a slack would be a miracle even for the hardiest deep-learning bot.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Because it mostly doesn't matter? by Xabraxas · · Score: 1

      Wow. This is exactly the type of attitude that leads to serious data breaches. Not using secure tools for collaboration is increasingly becoming a regulatory risk as well. I need this security for my job and believe it or not most other people do too even if it is just to comply with regulations but also because breaches on smaller companies is becoming more and more common. Just leaking some personal information of one person can be enough to trigger notification laws in some states.

      --
      Time makes more converts than reason
  15. Re:Slack is terrible by ahabswhale · · Score: 1

    1) I'm no fanboy. I don't even use slack.

    2) The link I provided was to slack's own website where they explicit state the data is encrypted at rest. Learn how to read.

    --
    Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
  16. good luck... by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Considering that Lync/Skype Pro is an utter shitshow mess and that is why we switched to Slack for comms..... I have very little hope that microsoft can come up with anything

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  17. Reading the headline... by unixisc · · Score: 1

    .... I thought that Microsoft was cracking down on employees who slack off

    1. Re:Reading the headline... by hamburger+lady · · Score: 1

      they can't. that would trample on the religious freedom of members of the church of the subgenius.

      --

      ---
      Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
  18. I've heard of slack but don't see the point by Paul+Carver · · Score: 1

    Aren't there plenty of IM options already? And doesn't Lync already do this? I haven't really looked because my company has had an excellent IM solution practically forever and IRC works great for discussions with people outside the company. I've heard about Slack because apparently a lot of people are using it to discuss OpenContrail, but after installing it on my phone I just didn't see the point.

    Aren't there plenty of interoperable XMPP clients that don't tie you to a single provider?

  19. Email? by DogDude · · Score: 1

    Looks like Slack is a bad replacement for email. Am I missing something?

    --
    I don't respond to AC's.
    1. Re:Email? by driblio · · Score: 1

      Correct, slack is a bad replacement for email. What you're missing is that fish are a bad replacement for cars.

  20. Microsoft's collaboration problem by laughingskeptic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Is that they rely on IT Teams to deploy their collaboration tools. IT Teams perform an analysis and lock down everything that they can before rolling out the product.

    The locked down collaboration tool is unable to be used for collaboration and everyone finds some other way to get their jobs done.

    The last two companies I have worked for rolled out SharePoint in such a way that people quickly learned to not allow their documents to become captives in the "collaboration tool" and the ballyhooed sites became unused. If Microsoft does not plan on providing a free/consumer offering then this tool will be relegated to the same dust heap that most SharePoint servers have found themselves in and for the same reason: the people in control are not the users.

    1. Re:Microsoft's collaboration problem by gander666 · · Score: 1

      Ah, that reminds me of my name for Sharepoint. It is a "Document Coffin" where documents go to die...

      --
      Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress ... but I repeat myself. - Mark T
    2. Re:Microsoft's collaboration problem by minus9 · · Score: 1

      SharePoint is where documents go to die.

    3. Re:Microsoft's collaboration problem by Voyager529 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Is that they rely on IT Teams to deploy their collaboration tools. [SNIP] the people in control are not the users.

      The problem is a constantly moving pendulum.

      MBA: "We need to do better document and revision management than a shared folder because everyone overwrites my stuff!"
      IT: "Okay, here's Sharepoint."
      MBA: "Great! People will just figure this out, right?"
      IT: "It's a bit more complicated than that. We can do a one-hour training session in shifts, and have the whole company trained in 2-3 days."
      MBA: "We can't afford the downtime! Just roll it out, provide a cheat sheet, and prepare for the service desk tickets to come in!"
      IT: *shrug*

      A month later...

      MBA: "Sharepoint sucks because people keep locking documents and setting the permissions so only they can access them!"
      IT: "Users aren't respecting the policy, or don't know how to set them properly...which we'd have taught them all to do in the training class."
      MBA: "We don't have time for that! Disable the ability for users to set permissions!"
      IT: "...so, everyone has access to everything?"
      MBA: "Exactly!"

      A month later...

      MBA: "Sharepoint didn't protect our data! How did Steve in HR manage to take financial documents with him when he got fired?"
      IT: "...because we gave everyone permissions."
      MBA: "Why would you do that! Our information needs to be secure secure secure!!"
      IT: "...because management was having a tough time with the permissions and told us to revoke them all."

      The endless cycle of IT deployments is from convenient/insecure when things are annoying, to inconvenient/secure when hackers rule the news circuit, and back again when everyone is sick of 12 passwords and the budget is too tight for SSO systems to be implemented. Rules and procedures when the rollouts start, to the real-world workflows they impede because the committee who designed them didn't account for corner cases they didn't know existed.

      Sharepoint and Team and any number of other collaboration tools *can* be used effectively in an organization. Those who require their implementation, however, are unlikely to account for the fact that the super-smooth tech demo they saw at a conference assumed a use case that perfectly fit with the tool and its demonstration, as well as the fact that all the users spent hours and hours rehearsing that demo. When management thinks in terms of a rollout as a combination of research, acquisition, more research, implementation, even more research, training, and optimization...it is only then that any collaboration tool will work. They cannot work in a situation involving separate fiefdoms and immovable workflows or unwilling users.

    4. Re:Microsoft's collaboration problem by illtud · · Score: 1

      This, much.

  21. irony by frovingslosh · · Score: 1

    So the same people who bundled Solitaire with Windows and who gave us an OS that crashes daily costing lost work and long rebooting times are now fighting slack in the workplace. Anyone else not expect this to go well?

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  22. Re:Slack is terrible by subk · · Score: 1

    What the fuck is your point? Are you just totally retarded or what?

    The Twitter discussion you linked is from 2014. https://slack.com/security-pra... says effective Dec. 2015 that data is encrypted in transit and at rest. So no, he's not just totally retarded..

    --
    Now, if you'll excuse me, I have backups to corrupt.
  23. Re:Yammer by TedTschopp · · Score: 2

    In January, Yammer's data model will be moved over to the Office Graph, the same data model that runs Teams. So you will be able to use Yammer or Teams on the same data set. Yammer and teams will just be different views into the same model.

    --
    Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
  24. Re:Yammer by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    Yammer is facebook for businesses, not chat. This is different. Not that Yammer is particularly useful.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  25. Re:Slack is terrible by ahabswhale · · Score: 1

    You're retarded. My link is current. Your's is from two fucking years ago. Why is it so hard for you to imagine that they've added encryption in two years time? It's not that fucking hard.

    --
    Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
  26. Re:Slack is terrible by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

    Current website, versus link from 2014, and the person citing the link in 2014 thinks the person citing the current site is a retard.

    Oh, how Slashdot has gone to hell.

    --
    Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  27. Re:Slack is terrible by thegarbz · · Score: 1

    Are you just totally retarded or what?

    Someone in this thread is. But I don't think you'll like it much when you figure out who.

  28. Re:Slack is terrible by youngone · · Score: 1

    Oh, how Slashdot has gone to hell.

    The above exchange might be the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Stupid name calling is about all this place has left.

    Such a shame.

  29. i used it, it's awesome by nyquil+superstar · · Score: 1

    I'm apparently the only person to actually try it here. With my token hipster slack-loving designer coworker. No joke, it's really, really nice. Great interface, nice features, good performance, and some superb and interesting integrations out of the box. nN excellent web client, and very good desktop and phone clients for all major platforms. It actually feels like the end game, connecting up a variety of useful, but disjointed MS products. Unlike slack, it has superb voice, video calling, and screen sharing built in. If you are in an O365 shop, you really, really should try this. It's truly an excellent offering.

    1. Re:i used it, it's awesome by nyquil+superstar · · Score: 1

      I did this, 1-on-1 sharing without any problem at all. Started a chat with someone and jumped right into video and screen sharing. And thank Jeebus, the screen sharing performance is much, much better than that of Skype for Business, which kinda sucked.

  30. Go Microsoft Teams! by MohanBlogger · · Score: 1

    Slack will no doubt feel the heat - probably a super nova blast. However, success of Microsoft Teams will complete depend on how well they integrate it with Skype, Office environments and how seamless it becomes. A behemoth like Microsoft might just destabilize Slack. You never know! Moreover, with Microsoft spreading its giant tentacles around the team messaging chat app, it's time Slack innovated even further. Happy times ahead!

  31. Re:Slack is terrible by Maritz · · Score: 1

    Are you just totally retarded or what?

    You seem to be unable to understand that what was true in 2014 might not be in 2016.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  32. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  33. Re:Yammer by phantomfive · · Score: 1

    Yeah, at least, when I used Yammer (was forced to use Yammer), that's what it was. I can't imagine how anyone would use it for serious collaboration, but maybe it had features I didn't know about.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  34. Microsoft? Rly? by CauseBy · · Score: 1

    What was the last successful Microsoft product? It was Xbox right? Anything since then? Before that it was Office, before that it was that popular keyboard and mouse, and before that it was Windows. I count four successes out of well over a hundred major product attempts. It's amazing they're still a company; those four successes are really extraordinary.

  35. Re:Slack is terrible by Xabraxas · · Score: 1

    Because this is exactly how this DOESN'T work. All data is encrypted at rest and in transit. Read the docs before spreading bullshit.

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    Time makes more converts than reason
  36. Re:Which one spies the least on you and your team? by Xabraxas · · Score: 1

    Teams cannot spy on you. Office 365 is one of the highest levels of security compliance of any online tools.

    --
    Time makes more converts than reason