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Atlassian Acquires Trello For $425M (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader shares a TechCrunch report: Atlassian today announced that it has acquired project management service Trello for $425 million. The vast majority of the transaction is in cash ($360 million), with the remainder being paid out in restricted shares and options. The acquisition is expected to close before March 31, 2017. This marks Atlassian's 18th acquisition and, as Atlassian president Jay Simons noted, it is also the largest. Just like with many of Atlassian's other acquisitions, the company plans to keep both the Trello service and brand alive and current users shouldn't see any immediate changes.

21 of 90 comments (clear)

  1. Read the article by ArchieBunker · · Score: 3

    And still have no idea what these companies produce or why I should care.

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    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
    1. Re:Read the article by fiannaFailMan · · Score: 5, Informative

      If you plan to work in an Agile environment then you might want to drop that attitude and make it your business to find out what these companies do.

      Atlassian produces online collaboration tools like Jira and Confluence. Jira is a ticket-management system that lets you set up Kanban boards or SCRUM boards on which your team tracks the progress of tickets through the various stages to completion, and supports Agile visualizations such as burn-down charts. Confluence is a wiki-like tool for sharing documentation.

      Plenty of employers are asking for Agile experience, so if you're familiar with these tools then it'll work in your favor.

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      Drill baby drill - on Mars
    2. Re:Read the article by Shatrat · · Score: 2

      Fortunately their ticketing (Jira) and documentation (Confluence) products are good for actual work as well. I've used them in the past in a network engineering role, and I use confluence now in an equipment support role. Confluence is what Sharepoint would be like if the Sharepoint developers had ever used Wikipedia and Sharepoint also wasn't garbage.

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    3. Re:Read the article by fiannaFailMan · · Score: 2

      Any time I hear "Agile" or any of those other buzzwords, I run for the door.

      Just you do that. If you don't want to learn a skill or method that employees are asking for then knock yourself out.

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      Drill baby drill - on Mars
    4. Re:Read the article by mlts · · Score: 2

      It really depends on the company. Almost all organizations say "we use Agile methodology", and it can mean either little or nothing, or a lot.

      For example, one place I worked at was proud of their "Agile" system. However, I wound up spending 4-6 hours a day in stand-up meetings which were a combination of a confessional, Celebrity Apprentice blamestorm/tattlefest with people wringing their hands on how others are blocking them, and long speeches as each member defended themselves and tried to point the blame about why little was getting done, as well as the SCRUM master wanting in-depth explanations about what people are doing with every single ticket assigned to them.

      Another place I worked at last year had their stand-ups be just significant notable issues, and would never last more than 5-10 minutes.

    5. Re:Read the article by Junta · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In my experience if I hear 'the Agile' then almost certainly the process actually in use is not Agile, but the company in question did give some consultant a lot of money to let them tell themselves that. Especially if they go on and on about their Agile process sometimes even more than they want to talk about what they actually *do*.

      Real agile shops tend to not really think much about it. They focus on what they do, and they may use 'Agile' process and such, but it's never something that dominates in their mind. This actually makes sense because Agile came about as a rejection of a process-obsessed software development culture where teams would get so tangled up in formal processes that a lot of work was more process overhead than work, so while a process needs to be in place, it shouldn't loom large in the minds of those following it.

      Now Agile is a buzzword milked for consultancy and certification fees. Atlassian gets some of my disdain for contributing to that (I've heard so many people say you can't possibly be doing Agile if you aren't using JIRA for example), but based on my experience at least their software isn't bad (though perhaps not worth the price compared to free alternatives), so they at least contribute something compared to other businesses invoking 'Agile' for financial gain.

      This is the fate of *anything* that becomes hyped in the world dealing with something like software/project management, it will be diluted and perverted and become indicative of very little.

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      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    6. Re:Read the article by Junta · · Score: 3, Interesting

      We have used redmine in the same capacity for requirements, project and issue tracking. It's not as shiny and almost no one knows about it, but it's got a surprisingly powerful project management and ticketing system. Unfortunately it's code repository integration is rather weak, but it can be hooked into Gitlab to try to have the best of both (repository management of gitlab with the project tracking of redmine).

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      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    7. Re:Read the article by Junta · · Score: 2

      GitLab does a decent job of having a private git repository and code review with ability to have continuous integration.

      I really don't like the thought of one company (Atlassian) being synonymous with 'Agile'. You don't have to use their tools to be doing Agile right, and in general you shouldn't be so obsessed with 'Agile' and lose sight of what your actual objective is.

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      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    8. Re:Read the article by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And still have no idea what these companies produce or why I should care.

      And in the same breath Slashdotters will whine that they have relevant skillsets and that it's because of their age they can't get hired.

    9. Re:Read the article by Junta · · Score: 2

      A good rule of thumb is if they mention they use Agile within 5 seconds of starting an interview, or in general devote more than 5 or 6 words to explain that they use Agile, then they probably are not doing it truly right. They can speak about the tooling they use with more words, but if they feel obsessed with explicitly wrapping every concept back to the word 'Agile' rather than leaving it implied then it's probably a good sign to run away.

      --
      XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
    10. Re:Read the article by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      That's like the "Top 10 habits of successful people" books. That successful people all develop similar habits doesn't mean that if you adopt those same habits that it'll have any effect on your success. Forcing non-agile people to follow an agile method will not improve results, even if agile is used by the most successful teams.

    11. Re:Read the article by AK+Marc · · Score: 2

      Everywhere I've worked that claimed "agile" just used "quick waterfall/iterative". Agile is not much different than a weekly waterfall, done iteratively. Everything must be done iteratively. You can read a book "agile" by reading the contents, then reading the chapter appropriate to what you need to know that day, but you can't read every other word and have the result be coherent. But the reading of the chapter is iterative. Or, if that's too large of a chunk, then read the sentence iteratively.

      Those using "agile" as better than "iterative" understand neither. Agile is an "improvement" of iterative to reduce the iteration time. Almost all tools designed for either work with the other. So someone that "can't do agile" can't do iterative.

      And many who try agile are doing so because they can't do iterative either, so they are failing in new ways.

  2. Oh well... by null+etc. · · Score: 2

    I bet the layer of product managers at Atlassian became top-heavy, with number of managers outpacing the number of sub-par software products they release (like JIRA.) So, the natural next step in the evolution of the company is to buy a non-sub-par software product company, and let the product managers have their way with turning the purchased software products into sub-par products. That way, every product manager gets a fair share of practice at screwing up perfectly fine software that probably doesn't really need to be modified in the ways they are intending.

  3. Re:$425 million!!!!???!!!! by M0j0_j0j0 · · Score: 2

    I also have no clue, better raise a ticket!

  4. Re:Trello + Jira = Awesome by trybywrench · · Score: 2

    JIRA has a kanban board and it's pretty awesome. It's been a little while since i've used it but I remember the columns had to be defined by issue filters instead of just an arbitrary name like in Trello and having to use filters to define columns was a bit of a PITA. If you take the time to really master JIRA it's an incredible tool where Trello lets you get all the advantages of kanban with the least amount of effort. I suspect you'll be able to create issues in JIRA and have them show up in Trello pretty soon (if not already) long term I see Trello as a stepping stone to JIRA. I describe them to non-technical folks as Trello when you need a good pickup truck and JIRA when you need an 18 wheeler.

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    I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
  5. Makes perfect sense by volodymyrbiryuk · · Score: 4, Funny

    Atlassian guys probably bought it because they were sick and tired using their own crap.

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  6. Re:These companies have real value though... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It has been ten years, and had there been a bubble, it would have popped by now. Nobody is quitting FB, and advertisers pay them handsomely for ads. None of these companies are going anywhere, and it is well nigh impossible for them to actually lose value.

    Those are exactly the sorts of things that people say and believe just before a bubble bursts!

    Thank you for expressing them. You've given the rest of us hope that the end of all of this "Web 2.0" nonsense is closer than ever.

  7. Re:$425 million!!!!???!!!! by Aaden42 · · Score: 2

    I agree that most of Atlassian's stuff is overpriced bloated crap, but comparing JIRA and Bugzilla is like comparing dial-up and FIOS and claiming they're both internet access from your phone company, so they're the same.

    We looked at and rejected Confluence because MediaWiki is free, less resource intensive, and works. We rejected Bamboo because we find Quickbuild (another commercial product) is cheaper, less resource intensive, and much easier to use than Bamboo or Jenkins. Commercial packagings of OpenSource VCS systems like SVN or Git give me hives, and I won't touch them.

    But... Especially when you need your ticketing system used by non-programmers, JIRA beats out Bugzilla in user friendliness, workflow tracking, and a bunch of other important features. It's not even a contest. We tried both Bugzilla and TRAC, but JIRA won hands down in terms of user acceptance. That's probably the most important metric there is for a ticketing system.

  8. Re:$425 million!!!!???!!!! by Junta · · Score: 2

    much less productive than Bugzilla

    I'd much rather see something like redmine raised as an example. Bugzilla is a terrible ticketing system. If JIRA is worse than that, that just seems like an extremely hellish proposition.

    First they talk people into getting rid of Git then shove Bitbucket down your throat.

    I assume you are talking about something else than getting rid of Git, since bitbucket is a git based solution. I prefer GitLab over bitbucket for on-prem, and github for community based work (networking effect and all).

    What we have found to work best for us has been:
    redmine - bugs/feature/project tracking
    gitlab - repository and code review (I know, there are better code review systems out there, but we don't have fancy needs)
    jenkins for CI - again nothing particularly sexy there to really feel strongly about one way or another
    mattermost - team chat for larger teams that warrant that - benefits of slack without the drawbacks

    --
    XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
  9. Re:$425 million!!!!???!!!! by sexconker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Easy, let's say facebook has 1 billion users and each user is worth 5$ of marketing potential, facebook is now worth 5 billion dollars - get it?

    You can't go down to the piggly wiggly and spend marketing potential.

    But you can go to a bank and your investors, wave your "marketing potential" about, and then get some sum of {loan, stock, approval to spend some cash} to BUY the Piggly Wiggly outright for $100 million. You end up increasing your "marketing potential" by $200 million because of "synergy", the news of the buyout boosting the value of Piggly Wiggly, etc.

    When the bank wants their loan money or your investors point to the plateauing stock price, you simply repeat the process with a new target. When you run out of targets you "spin off" prior targets into their own entities and sell their shriveled husks to some chump. If you can't find a chump, you cut the staff, burn it to the ground, and sell the IP and assets for pennies on the dollar.

    If this goes on for a while, you'll end up posting successive quarters of losses and people will be calling for your head. Just jump out the window with your golden parachute and move on to the next company to repeat the process.

  10. Run away! Run away! by swm · · Score: 2

    I don't know what Atlassian will do with Trello, but their existing products are horrid.
    We use JIRA (a bug tracker) and Confluence (a wiki). These suffer from
    - poor use of screen space
    - useless search
    - crude and inconsistent text editing
    - verbose, non-standard, and broken markdown

    Atlassian products are built for shelf-appeal: they are designed to look good in sales demos, and to appeal the people who sign POs and checks: CEOs, VPs, and directors. But they don't actually work for the people who have to use them: programmers and first-line managers.

    Atlassian puts their own bug database online. When you find a problem with Atlassian software you can search for it there. You will likely find that other people have found this problem before you, and opened tickets on it, which Atlassian has since closed, explaining either
    - yes, it is broken, but fixing it would be hard, so we're not going to
    OR
    - no, that's the way it is supposed to work, and we're not going to change it