I hate it, for several reasons (some of it could be user error or local configuration, but still):

- For a long time, the status of other users it showed was completely off. Like showing people online when they weren't. Also, sending messages sometimes mysteriously failed.

- Cannot copy conversation as text (formatting is messed up). Cannot save it as text without removing smileys.

- Cannot paste text verbatim into conversation without making silly smileys everywhere.

- There is a (relatively small) limit on how much text you could paste in.

- Couldn't transfer certain files (like .js or .exe).

Many of these things make sense for things like unmoderated chat, but I need to work, and sometimes exchange larger amounts of text and binary data.

I'd add: completely unreliable conversation history. I never figured out why it saved some messages but not others.

Basically why I loved it when we started using Slack.

You are so right haha. I guess working at a bigco has trained me on it and also because of the (relatively) "pretty" UI. Ive used Slack for side projects and its definitely a lot smoother/modern.

I'm not the GP, but I have a client who uses Lync. We usually have conference calls with three or four people, and someone always has an audio problem.

The screen sharing also seems to take a while to sync up. Worse, it silently stops updating somewhere in the call. Lync seems to have the worst real world performance of any screen sharing / conferencing app I've used.

have you checked firewall issues? MS has a list of ips, urls and protocols that need to be open in order to use it.

It is annoyingly in your face, ugly, slow and unreliable. It offers nothing that isn't done better by another program.

The only reason it can compete is because of Microsofts package deals and the anticompetitive integration with the rest of their ecosystem.

Me too. It is a key tool for me as a PM. I have run meeting with hundreds on call.