<story><title>Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/04/source-microsoft-mulled-an-8-billion-bid-for-slack-will-focus-on-skype-instead/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chollida1</author><text>I wonder if the outcome would have been different if Slack was incorporated outside of the US where Microsoft could use some of its non domiciled cash on the acquisition?&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ibtimes.com&amp;#x2F;microsoft-admits-keeping-92-billion-offshore-avoid-paying-29-billion-us-taxes-1665938&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ibtimes.com&amp;#x2F;microsoft-admits-keeping-92-billion-o...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also interesting to think that Slack could be worth so much.  Look at ICQ, Microsoft instant messenger, etc.&lt;p&gt;It seems as though slack like tools get eclipsed every 5-10 years as a new generation comes along with a new favorite tool.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d be interested in hearing from someone who would argue that slack will be a dominate communication tool in 5-8 years time and still exist in a meaningful way in 10 years time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lmm</author><text>Frankly Slack&amp;#x27;s success is the utter failure of every alternative on the UX side. MSN messenger was perhaps wrong-footed by the shift to multi-device, but none of the other tools have such an excuse. It&amp;#x27;s not a generational thing, it&amp;#x27;s an incredible level of, there&amp;#x27;s no other word, incompetence on the part of the makers of major messaging software (Skype in particular).</text></comment>
<story><title>Source: Microsoft mulled an $8B bid for Slack, will focus on Skype instead</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/04/source-microsoft-mulled-an-8-billion-bid-for-slack-will-focus-on-skype-instead/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chollida1</author><text>I wonder if the outcome would have been different if Slack was incorporated outside of the US where Microsoft could use some of its non domiciled cash on the acquisition?&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ibtimes.com&amp;#x2F;microsoft-admits-keeping-92-billion-offshore-avoid-paying-29-billion-us-taxes-1665938&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ibtimes.com&amp;#x2F;microsoft-admits-keeping-92-billion-o...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Also interesting to think that Slack could be worth so much.  Look at ICQ, Microsoft instant messenger, etc.&lt;p&gt;It seems as though slack like tools get eclipsed every 5-10 years as a new generation comes along with a new favorite tool.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d be interested in hearing from someone who would argue that slack will be a dominate communication tool in 5-8 years time and still exist in a meaningful way in 10 years time.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chishaku</author><text>&amp;gt; ICQ, Microsoft instant messenger ... slack like tools...&lt;p&gt;I think people too often overlook Slack&amp;#x27;s integrations.  Yes, Slack is &amp;quot;just&amp;quot; chat or &amp;quot;just&amp;quot; a glorified IRC.  Or is it?&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t know how long it would take me to integrate my Stripe, Github, Trello, and Zendesk streams into IRC to the point where I could set it and forget it.  I think for business users at least, using this type of setup _effectively_ could make it hard to move away.</text></comment>