Hacker News Reader

Comment by baconner | Hacker News Reader

Seemed like it was just a mobile join notification in the video similar to Skype for business or WebEx if you are using VoIP. No?

My company used WebEx and I could make it dial me and start up my conference line without having to go through all the regular pin entry stuff. Now we're using Lync (Skype for business) which is similar although tragically buggy. That can also dial me and sends notifications if you hook it up.

The key for these kind of apps is cost and reliability. Seems like they're advertising substantial cost reductions and better quality. If either one is true they'll likely make out really well.

View on HN

Lync is still buggy? I haven't used it in about two years, but I'd have thought Microsoft would have solved those issues by now.

I must say I've been really disappointed with how often it crashes outright or has major rendering issues during screen sharing. When it works it's really convenient but 20% of meetings with screen share involved seem to have an issue. I really think quality is life or death for these products. If my company weren't a tight Microsoft partner I really doubt we'd be using it.

WebEx wasn't as convenient but at least it worked correctly the vast majority of the time.

> I really think quality is life or death for these products... > If my company weren't a tight Microsoft partner I really doubt we'd be using it.

You answered yourself - no, quality is not life and death (at least not fast death) for this product. :)

Ha you got me there

Lync is shockingly bad. You'd think that after 45 years of sending text to each other over networks this would be a solved problem by now.

Anecdotal, but I use Skype for Business every day without any bugs/issues, as does the rest of my company (~50 people, lots of remote workers + liberal WFH policy).

When there's a rare issue, its usually a headset not working, which is probably more a user or windows problem.

I don't see a lot of audio issues, but tons of problems with screen sharing and video.

My company has about 4000 users in 100+ countries so maybe it's bandwidth/scale in part. i see a lot of stuff like skypefb crashes or doesn't render correctly when you try to screen share, etc especially internationally.

Not 100% certain part of it isn't due to us cheaping out on infrastructure to run it.

Microsoft is not known for promptly fixing bugs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com