>>>"(and hipchat, and jive, and whatsapp, and groupme, and skype, and who-knows-what-else.. ugh)"
I agree with your sentiment at the end of this sentence. I've gone through this as an individual. Sometimes you just need to cut the slack and regroup using a standard toolset for the organization (or group, or sub-group, etc.). Otherwise, org-wide (or group-wide) communication simply becomes too difficult. Or "fragmented", to borrow your diction.
I haven't used Slack or Screenhero, but I hope Screenhero thought through some of these potential "second order" effects on their customers that the acquisition would have before signing on the solid line. Hopefully the founders didn't just have $$$ in their eyes.
That's one of the primary risks of using/adopting a new service/system/product, in my view. Will the people building the product, and actively selling people on the idea, actually defend the product once "acquisition is in the air"...
You seem to be presuming an enterprise-class user (indicated by language like "in comparison to salaries and the benefits", "you're not a qualified lead", etc).
On the consumer side, I would say that the jump from $5/mo per customer to $5/mo per user per customer would be pretty significant. The number of users in the organization enters the calculus directly in the latter case, whereas it did not before.
But in another sense, yes, the person who posted the comment you are responding to is probably not a good "qualified lead" for you, whatever it is that you do.
1) i live and work in downtown seattle. i do a lot of data work, and a lot of deep research and analysis. feel feel to use technical terms, though i may ask for clarification from time to time (and will most likely appeal to the community to help resolve a dispute). i am a free-market libertarian, but i'm also a fiscally-conservative bleeding heart (classical) liberal with a strong bias toward environmentalism warped through the lens of smart modern government and free markets (for products, services, and information). i am of and from the northwest, for better or worse. and i would like to see downtown seattle become a vibrant community (it's almost there, it just needs a little PUSH...).
2) i propose the following three non-profits for the experiment (assuming they are cool with it, which i will check before actually launching anything):
(1) the fisher house (https://www.fisherhouse.org)
(2) seadrunar (http://www.seadrunar.org/)
(3) real change seattle (http://realchangenews.org/index.php/site/about/org)
I agree with your sentiment at the end of this sentence. I've gone through this as an individual. Sometimes you just need to cut the slack and regroup using a standard toolset for the organization (or group, or sub-group, etc.). Otherwise, org-wide (or group-wide) communication simply becomes too difficult. Or "fragmented", to borrow your diction.
I haven't used Slack or Screenhero, but I hope Screenhero thought through some of these potential "second order" effects on their customers that the acquisition would have before signing on the solid line. Hopefully the founders didn't just have $$$ in their eyes.
That's one of the primary risks of using/adopting a new service/system/product, in my view. Will the people building the product, and actively selling people on the idea, actually defend the product once "acquisition is in the air"...