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Slack Buys and Shuts Down Intelligent Email App Astro (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the cause-and-effect dept.

Slack has acquired email app company Astro to incorporate it into Slack channels. As a result, Astro is shutting down its Mac, iOS, Android, Alexa and Slack apps. They're no longer taking new users and existing ones will lose access on October 10th. Engadget reports: The company said that with over 50 million channels created to date, they're increasingly becoming the platform through which teams collaborate. "But we all know that email is still a very important tool in business communication," said Slack. "We've taken some steps to make it possible to integrate email into Slack, but now we're in a position to make that interoperability much simpler and much, much more powerful."

Last year, Astro launched its Astrobot Slack app, which let users manage their emails and check their Office 365 or Google calendars from within Slack. It also allowed them to do one search to pull up results from both Slack and email. "As we explored with Slack how to bring together messaging, email and calendar, it became evident that we would have the biggest impact on workplace communications and realize our original vision by joining Slack," the company said.

50 comments

  1. My tag for this story (see comment) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    #AndNothingOfValueWasLost

    1. Re:My tag for this story (see comment) by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      And what the hell is Slack and why so many stories about it?

    2. Re:My tag for this story (see comment) by Narcocide · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's like basecamp for people smart enough to know IRC is superior but not smart enough to realize you could still just use IRC.

    3. Re:My tag for this story (see comment) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's also for people smart enough to know IRC is superior but unfortunately still have to collaborate with people not smart enough to use IRC.

  2. I don't use... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't use Astro, but I'm getting tired of companies buying other company's/person's products just to kill them.

    1. Re:I don't use... by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      But they didn't "just kill it"
      They integrated the functionality in to their own product, then killed it.

    2. Re:I don't use... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      tomayto tomahto

    3. Re:I don't use... by ls671 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I have been using slack since version 1.2.3 (~1993) and now using slackware 14.2!

      I can't find that Astro app that you are talking about in my distro. What is it? What does it do?

      Anyway, I just chatted with Patrick Volkerding and he says that he hasn't got a clue either! Strange story.

      Please enlight me!

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    4. Re:I don't use... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slack is platformized and monetized IRC. Alternatives include Discord and Microsoft Teams (?). I do use Discord for one group of friends and it's pretty nice. It is a good mix of techy and simple and works on nearly all devices. I think you can even connect with an actual IRC client.

      Slackware was the distribution that I started on and ran for quite a while through the end of highschool and then college, compiling and recompiling kernels and nearly everything else from scratch (including X.org. That was fun.). It was a blast back when I was younger. Now I come home from work and just want things to work. I never thought I'd get to this point, but it's happened. Now I have a Fedora 28 with Gnome 3 and I'm actually very happy with it. Perhaps only because I ran FVWM before that (meow).

    5. Re:I don't use... by jmccue · · Score: 1

      Slackware was the distribution

      Slackware is the distribution, it is still active and used by many people.

      Anyway seems odd an IRC Client 'clone' needs email, but I guess that is how companies grow these days

    6. Re: I don't use... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the whole point of Astro was to be bought out by Slack. It looks like the value in Astro is that it enables users to give Slack access to more of their personal information, i.e. their email/calendar/office accounts.

    7. Re:I don't use... by ls671 · · Score: 2

      Correct, it is crazy. A lot of companies try to duplicate a lot of stuff that already exists in one "web app" or just "app", sometimes using the silliest protocols instead of the existing ones.

      I had a chat with a marketing person from our company and she said:

      "We are in the modern era, people don't want to open a mail client, an IRC client, etc. We need to have a product that just does it all."

      So nowadays, some marketing people find it unacceptable and too complicated to ask people to open and learn how to use clients like, mail, irc, etc. Often, they have a hard time using those clients themselves or worse, they don't even know such things as IRC exists.

      It is a general tendency that I have observed lately, many people try to re-invent what already exists and they don't even know it already exists!

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    8. Re:I don't use... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Slackware is...

      To be fair, I didn't say it doesn't exist or that I don't still have a Slack box or my 4-disc sets of Slack 7.0, 7.1, and I think 8.0 sitting around anymore. :-) I haven't powered up my Slackware box in several years and its updates are waaaaay behind, but I do still have one :-)

      Occasionally I miss the customizability of FVWM, but I was never that great at creating themes, so my desktops were always pretty ugly (though very functional for me). I don't miss it ehough to switch back, but it was a fun time.

      Peace!

    9. Re: I don't use... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LOL. Slashdot is on fire today.

    10. Re: I don't use... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wesley?

    11. Re:I don't use... by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1

      Those who are ignorant of IRC are doomed to reinvent it, badly.

      —me, upon learning my employer had, after nuking IRC and switching to Jabber, ditched Jabber for the even steamier and more fragrant pile that is Slack.

      </thread>

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
    12. Re:I don't use... by thomn8r · · Score: 1
      They integrated the functionality in to their own product, then killed it.

      Embrace, extend, extinguish

    13. Re: I don't use... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, they buy companies to integrate their features poorly, then whine about how no one ever uses them and quietly kill them off after a year or two because they don't want to put in the effort.

    14. Re:I don't use... by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

      Acquire, add, assassinate.
      Buy, build, bomb.

    15. Re: I don't use... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The sad thing is that any messaging app with offline messages effectively replaces email completely for everything except domain login stuff, yet companies still use both at all times.

  3. That's what happens by Red_Forman · · Score: 2

    The more you depend on someone else to do your work, the more they bite you in the ass.

  4. Another banner day by bobstreo · · Score: 1

    for people using cloud services. First Zoho, then Astro.

    Impending 365 downtime imminent?

    1. Re:Another banner day by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 1

      for people using cloud services.

      . . . cloud services using people would be a way more interesting banner . . .

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    2. Re:Another banner day by bobstreo · · Score: 1

      for people using cloud services.

      . . . cloud services using people would be a way more interesting banner . . .

      You mean using people like the machines did in "The Matrix" ?

  5. Slack is an interruption machine by davecb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's like being in a room full of excitable people, all exclaiming OOH, Shiney! all day.

    --
    davecb@spamcop.net
    1. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's why mehlinneials love it. It puts complex information in to small bytes their underdeveloped brains can understand.

    2. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by davecb · · Score: 1

      My youngest colleagues detest it. They seem to like voice (;-))

      --
      davecb@spamcop.net
    3. Re:Slack is an interruption machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's like being in a room full of excitable people, all exclaiming OOH, Shiney! all day.

      Is that what it is? Because I read this and thought ... what the fuck is Slack ...

      The company said that with over 50 million channels created to date, they're increasingly becoming the platform through which teams collaborate. "But we all know that email is still a very important tool in business communication"

      I suspected it was something social-media-ish, which is why I have no idea of what the fuck it is.

      No thanks, if we're going to tune commercial communications to pander to the special little snowflake idiots with short attention spans, I'm not playing that game.

      Every corporate attempt to hop onto the bandwagon of social media type shit that I've ever seen has resulted in an utterly useless interface which can't actually help me accomplish a single fucking thing. Sure, if you're a 15 year old it's a familiar format, but it's fucking useless for actual work.
        My company has something which is supposed to be the source of information and collaboration, I've never found a single useful thing in it, and the only posts are the breathless excited drooling idiots who are cheerleading it as if it was the best thing ever. I don't even try to use it any more.

      No thanks, this sounds like more useless shit like Google Wave or whatever the fuck it was ... I remember seeing a demo of that by someone who was so excited over it I checked to be sure he hadn't peed on the floor (and told him as much). After several pointed questions about what it was, what it was for, and why I should give a damn, I basically said "this is vaporware shit with no actual applications, right?", and then walked out of the room.

      Fuck you kids and your shiny useless garbage, I simply don't give a fuck.

    4. Re:Slack is an interruption machine by rogoshen1 · · Score: 1

      Thank you for taking time out of your busy work day to log into Slashdot, in order to let us know about distraction machines.

      Now, back to work.

      (Also, Flock is way, way worse in terms of being bombarded with obtrusive notifications)

    5. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course.. Density of communication - voice about 160 words per minute. Slack - about 30 words per minute.

    6. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by tepples · · Score: 1

      Voice: 0 words per minute because the rest of the team isn't necessarily online at the same time. Written word: 80 wpm after spending some quality time with Mavis or Mario.

    7. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Voice: 0 words per minute because the rest of the team isn't necessarily online at the same time. Written word: 80 wpm after spending some quality time with Mavis or Mario.

      Not online at the same time eh? Well, better use email, because Slack scrolls whatever the fuck was said earlier right off the damn screen, and good luck finding it.

      Fuck slack. It's not completely terrible for one-on-one communications, but it still uses more ram than my entire browser WITH TABS OPEN.

    8. Re:Slack is an interruption machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't call it social media, although I hate it nearly as much

      If you don't have to use it at your job, just be thankful.

    9. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by tepples · · Score: 1

      Slack scrolls whatever the fuck was said earlier right off the damn screen, and good luck finding it.

      Discord has a "scroll to oldest unread message" button. Click it, then start reading down until you're caught up. I can't test this in Slack at the moment, but I'd be very surprised if it did not.

    10. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, bless. Itâ(TM)s so sweet when you come across those poor soles still using Lynx to browse the web.

    11. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's why mehlinneials love it.

      I hate to be the old man in the room, but they really fucking do, and it shows.

      You only have to look at the hoops you need to jump through to get actual useful logging out of it.

      "BUH MUH PRIVACY!"

      Maybe, I don't know, try sexually harassing your coworkers on your own equipment, you hipster fucks. Then we wouldn't need to pull your message logs.

    12. Re:Slack is an interruption machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      for not caring so much, you certainly wrote a lot

      but actually, Slack is mostly used internally at corporations for teams to have a chat room, people used skype before Microsoft bought it, but now they have all migrated to slack.

      could use IRC or something else just as well, but slack is easy to have approved by corporate people and there's nothing to maintain since slack runs the servers.

      best part for you: you don't have to use it, and nobody wants to talk to you on slack, so you are fine.

    13. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It strips communication of any actual information so their underdeveloped brains don't have to be bothered with actually understanding anything.

      TFTFY

    14. Re:Slack is an interruption machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      best part for you: you don't have to use it, and nobody wants to talk to you on slack, so you are fine.

      Are you one of those Neanderthals who still works in a physical office? Then and only then is your claim at all true.

      —Zontar (AC because moderated blah blah blah)

    15. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by davecb · · Score: 1

      IRC, too, is an interruption machine (;-))

      --
      davecb@spamcop.net
    16. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by jon3k · · Score: 1

      Slack clearly identifies all new messages. You can also directly message someone or @them in a channel to notify them (depending on their notification settings).

      It's mostly about understanding how to use Slack, like IRC. It's just a room full of people talking, people should not assume you're reading every word if you're not actively engaged (if they do, they're using it wrong). They can @you, which is essentially like coming to get you from the other room to join the discussion.

      Personally I use wee-slack which allows me to mix Slack (team for work and one Slack team that some of my "non-techie" friends use for general chat) in with my existing client so I can join slack teams right along side IRC servers using a single client. It really makes Slack a lot more usable, for me, anyway. But it also means I can seamlessly use the Slack mobile app on my phone if I'm away from my computer, which is really handy.

    17. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They can @you, which is essentially like coming to get you from the other room to join the discussion.

      Well if it's anything like various in-game systems I've seen using that method it's still worthless when someone @-s you but whatever they are referencing already scrolled off the screen a long time ago.

    18. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      . It's just a room full of people talking

      In other words, it's an open plan office for those who are lucky enough to not work in open plan offices.

    19. Re: Slack is an interruption machine by jon3k · · Score: 1

      No, that's not a good metaphor. Think of it as a bunch of meeting rooms. And you can be in multiple meeting rooms at once or no meeting room at all. The notifications you receive are controlled by your settings. For example I only receive a notification if someone specifically @me in a channel I participate in or sends me a direct message. Just like on IRC (assuming your client supports it, mine does).

      No one ever complained about this behavior on IRC but for some reason people do on Slack. My guess is they just don't understand how to control the notification settings. And maybe that's Slack's fault, maybe the default settings should be setup how I have mine configured (I believe they should).

  6. Forums on lunch break by tepples · · Score: 1

    Forums are not quite the same as chat. Though the logging in Matrix, Slack, Skype, and Discord makes it less synchronous and ephemeral than IRC, it's still in practice somewhat more synchronous than something like Slashdot, where multiple-paragraph researched replies are commonplace. In something asynchronous like a threaded or nested forum, you can compose replies to several comments on your lunch break and still be seen as a participant in the discussion. And at least one analyst believes that synchronous communication puts people in minority time zones at an unfair disadvantage ("Why Slack is inappropriate for open source communications" by Dave Cheney).

  7. Re:Fuck Slack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Agreed.

  8. No it isn't. by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    It's a verbatim copy of IRC running of cloud microservices and web protocols controlled by a single company and used by bazillions because it offers unified branding and apps you can install everywhere. Plus it also offers per account per channel per user chat history that carries over (a thing that is a bit sucky to set up in IRC). You can also integrate it into other cloudy stuff implemented in modern microservices, such as Google Docs.

    Other than that it's just IRC in shiny. ... Which is where the "Shiny" actually comes in.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  9. mIRC Power Pack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why use slack when you got the power pack?