… Source: I bought enterprise software for a Fortune 20 during COVID until I launched my startup.
Original discussionMicrosoft breached antitrust rules by bundling Teams and Office, EU says786 source comments · at importYeah I'm not fully buying a startup lives or dies based on packaging deal of a long-embedded mega corp. Unless his startup was VC funded and was already seriously penetrating enterprise and then couldn't get round C of financing because their 100+ person sales team couldn't make the high growth math make sense. Otherwise usually your value prop can't be closely tied to *relatively* minor accounting decisions in the early days or you're already DOA when facing an entrenched opponent whose team can easily undercut you well beyond generic bundling deals (whether via strong existing relationships, making wider non-standard sweetheart deals that wouldn't be under regulatory scrutiny, and marketing budgets). Don't get me wrong this can harm markets generally, and megacorps should be held to higher scrutiny, but usually it's not that simple.
Full originalBring your own experience to the conversation.
Zoom became a major business because of Covid and Slack benfited majorly. Neither were powerhouses like Microsoft before then. Whether a small European startup would have won out locally without Microsofts market position + price advantage idk. But without details I'm not sure the financial decision making of a Fortune 20 matters in this conversation which was part of my point. Once your sales team is competing on price vs Microsoft it's basically over for young companies. Your value prop has to be much more than that until you're a mature business.
Full originalIn Enterprise settings, I have never seen anything than MS bundling over 20 years for that many clients. To my European eyes, Slack and Zoom have been always an US centric or Linux first small companies centric tools.
Full originalRespect different perspectives. Share concrete experiences.
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