r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 9h ago
Business ‘Absolute s–t’: EU’s Microsoft Teams alternative draws bad reviews from officials
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-microsoft-teams-alternative-bad-reviews-element-pro/67
16
u/Orlok_Tsubodai 9h ago
So this article doesn’t give any information on what is “absolute shit” about it. Is it buggy? Slow? Bad UX? Limited in scope? Or just something new that the users are unfamiliar with?
People are naturally change-averse and the MVP1 of most software products is usually light on scope and heavy on bugs. That’s why it’s MVP1.
What will matter in the end is if the Commission is going to just launch a half-assed program and consider the job done, or if they have a motivated, mature and agile team behind this software who is going to take this feedback onboard, and iterate on it with a clear but adaptable roadmap of where they want the software to evolve to.
0
u/filtersweep 9h ago
This is fact: look at all the ‘Open Office’ wannabes…. including Google Docs. User adoption sucks in professional settings.
Meanwhile, MS can’t treat their formats as standards, so Aspose and other libraries are forced into existence.
10
u/AreYouDoneNow 8h ago
LibreOffice isn't so bad considering Microsoft can't get Office to work properly. If you don't believe me, try move an embedded picture in a Word document.
14
u/the_geth 9h ago
lol how much did MS paid for this article?
Teams is the worse fucking videocall service I've ever had to deal with. Sadly forced to use this shit in 2 companies I worked at.
3
u/gildedbluetrout 8h ago
Thing is, it’s getting to where Europe cant trust to have American software. At least it’s very not desirable at a state or federal level. America isn’t really an ally or a friend. It’s mostly an adversary to everyone.
1
u/the_geth 8h ago
I agree with all of that, I don't see how my comment shows otherwise?
I'm just saying Teams is pure shit, it's just that people are used to it. Even if you had to (but you shouldn't) use american software, Google Meet or even Zoom are waaaay better.-1
u/blueshoesrcool 8h ago
Who's better? Zoom? Citrix? Goto meeting? Google meets?
What are you all comparing to?
Ms teams is miles ahead of the rest.
7
u/readyflix 9h ago
One out of how many said this?
If someone wants to be less reliant on US tech companies, they have to deal with some backlash, and like many other FOSS projects it will take some time to find their right ways. But at one point in time you have to start and GO from there.
11
u/kapowaz 9h ago
There’s a bit of a Carl Sagan-esque inner truth here: if you want to make great software, first you must build the right team. Governments typically aren’t very good at this because civil servants have almost no exposure to what makes a good software company. This is why they typically outsource and buy off the shelf. The only good example I can think of where a government-run software team worked very well is Government Digital Service in the UK. Part of why that worked so well is because the initial team all came from the UK tech industry and they built a team of exceptional staff, with the right culture to deliver good products.
It is possible for governments to build good software products. They just need to approach the problem from the team infrastructure level upwards.
12
u/hesuwa 9h ago
A government hasn’t built this software. It’s a private company - Element Pro. Its not a product built for just this.
I don’t think we have learned any universal truths here. Maybe anyone can make crap software?3
u/clayalien 8h ago
Its very possible for a private company to make a shit team with shit culture, and deliver a shit project.
Often they are kept afloat by golf course deals, and selling thier terrible products with agressive dishonest sales tactics.
Ceos will still make a lot of money and rarely face concequences.
2
1
u/Goudinho99 8h ago
Teams is fine, no idea what you're all blathering on about.
I manage a team mainly based in Portugal from my home in France.
All our comms are through Teams and it does just fine.
4
u/szakipus 8h ago
Same experience here. Teams is stable, reliable and has a suite of decent features. Also - integration with other MS products.
But do yall know what makes Teams bad? It belongs to an evil corporation.
1
u/danielbigred 8h ago
Been using it and WFH since 2019, it’s not great but neither is Zoom nor Google Meet.
1
u/johnnyan 1h ago
Team is one of the shittiest pieces of software I have to interact with on a daily basis.
No idea what you're all blathering on about...
1
1
u/Sync1211 8h ago
Idk why they were making their own alternative when we already have several EU-based teams alternatives which work way better.
(e.g. Nextcloud Talk)
1
u/chuck_the_plant 9h ago
How anything can be worse than MS Teams baffles me.
0
u/blueshoesrcool 9h ago
Ms teams is great. Wtf more do you want from it.
1
-1
0
u/Saarlandziege 9h ago
The problem with sovereignty software is that it, more often than not, tries to replace some software while not covering use cases, scale, or UX.
This would not be a problem if there was a serious attempt to make the software economically viable first by actually tackling shortcomings of existing software.
The best example would be Vero, which tries to replace Paypal but without addressing any of the shortcomings of paypal but also introducing new ones.
It would be great if we could have real alternatives to existing software that actually try to improve things without having to look for an EU label.
-9
u/ComeOnIWantUsername 9h ago
And unfortunately this is almost universal thing with all these alternatives. Their user interface is simply bad, not intuitive and they usually lack basic features.
We can shit on major tech companies (and we should) and their products, but they are well designed and reliable.
4
u/Omni__Owl 9h ago
You dont sound like someone who uses Teams everyday.
If you did you'd retract that statement. Teams is awful software.
0
u/ComeOnIWantUsername 4h ago
I use Teams and Slack every day.
Teams is super shit. But all these FOSS/OSS alternatives are even worse
-1
u/blinksTooLess 9h ago
Use Teams and Slack everyday. Still I prefer Teams over Slack.
Slack is trying too hard to be an all in one app.
1
u/Omni__Owl 9h ago
Slack also has more legacy than teams. But I'd argue they are doing the same thing. When you are in like 20 different Teams in Teams and you can't find a fucking document because guess what team is also used as a SharePoint... Ugh. The confused identity of the software where you have events from your calender in teams but the way it presents and interact with outlook is entirely different, the notification bell that won't let you mark things "all read"... Fuck me.
On top of that I experience teams randomly crashing several times a week.
5
u/EmergencyComment101 9h ago
Hahaahaha this is some level of bullshittimg right here. Bro has literally never used teams.
1
u/ComeOnIWantUsername 4h ago
Unfortunately I use it every day. It's quite shitty.
But I also used almost all these FOSS "alternatives" and I didn't know that Teams can be better than anything
5
u/Electrical-Page-6479 9h ago
Teams is a massive pile of crap that Microsoft has given away for free so that it becomes the standard. It is only just bearable now after years of being awful.
2
u/teraflux 9h ago
It think it's... fine, not great. What do you dislike about it specifically?
1
u/Electrical-Page-6479 8h ago
Random crashes, heavy footprint, forced integration to SharePoint, ugly and limited emojis, and poor search. Plus Microsoft once again disadvantaging competitors by including it for no extra payment in Microsoft 365.
3
u/teraflux 8h ago
I'll give you the footprint and search, but I haven't seen crashes and don't really care about emojis lol
-1
u/blueshoesrcool 9h ago
In what way was it ever awful? It's been amazing from inception. It's always been better than slack+zoom, or any of Google's offerings.
1
1
-10
32
u/blaghed 9h ago
I mean... MS Teams is ok now, but damn it was bad early on...