Now that Google is finally starting to impress on their product, their distribution advantage will kick in shortly. A good reminder: when distribution is proprietary, distribution wins (Comcast vs Netflix), when distribution is commoditized, best product wins (chrome vs IE), when product is commoditized, best service wins (Amazon vs others), when service is commoditized, best network wins.
Geoff Nin
2mo
They bundled it with o365, possibly breaking antitrust rules. But I guess they won so who cares?
Martin Baker
2mo
This is why we need real anti-trust.
Suraj Saste
2mo
"Distribution is commoditized, best product wins (chrome vs IE)" Kinda disagree with "best product wins" thought, even though I feel chrome is a better product today, back in the day the product parity was neck to neck. Chrome won because of pre-installtions and all the other strategies Google did owning to the distribution of both android and google ecosystem.
Jon Slinn
1mo
This is simply MS leveraging ownership of business desktop. Nothing more. Teams is a terrible product. It is winning *only* because of that desktop monopoly.
In the last line, what do you mean by best network?
David Andrieux
1mo
Back in 2016, and in a fairly arrogant move, Slack bought a full-page ad in The New York Times written as an open letter welcoming Microsoft entering the space. Seems like they realized their mistake in the meantime. The text has been removed from their blog but you can still find it here: https://qz.com/825617/slack-vs-microsoft-teams-slack-took-out-a-full-page-ad-in-the-new-york-times-to-welcome-its-new-competitor
Eric Law
2mo
I’m sure there is relevance to your insights, but I feel a disconnect between your mention of Google and their product yet the graph compares Teams and Slack (and the drastic difference seems to cover a period for which there is no comparable slack data). Should there be a Google line on that graph to tell part of the story?
Micky Pagel
1mo
We need the MS Teams line split in two: Users who have never used anything else and Users who desperately want to go back to using Slack. There is no third line.
Adi Vashist
2mo
Fantastic insight, Teams (and MS suite broadly) is a great example. Seems that it would require a generational change in the mode of distribution / tech advancements to reach the end user in a fundamentally new manner (Blockbuster vs Netflix) to challenge the incumbent. Perhaps there is a broader TAM expansion for search that allows for competitors like Perplexity to gain consumer market share, but Chrome / G Suite will make it such that Gemini can dominate without being the best product.
Idea Meritocracy + Culture ftw | Almost qualified YC (W24 Top 10%) | Prev. first PM hire at Chargebee | B2B SaaS & AI/Data Analytics
2moThis is super insightful. Helps select a differentiator angle (for success) real well. What's your view on OpenAI vs businesses getting impacted due to OpenAI, for instance, the recent Duolingo stock hit (or Chegg earlier). Distribution channel vs. loyal customer base vs. free/paid service.