I am a developer that works with data daily (data science, data engineering, AI, … however you like to call it.) I recently switched jobs from a Fortune 50 traditional retail company with >200k employees to a mid-size internet company with 500-1,000 employees.
Between the two companies, I got to experience both sides of the digital transformation. Many of the tools we use in my current role happen to come from the SaaS companies we discuss on the board: Crowdstrike, Datadog, Zoom, Slack, Snowflake, etc. So I thought I’d contribute to the board my experience as a user and thoughts on those tools.
In this post I’ll start with Zoom and Crowdstrike. I’ll make another post about Datadog and Snowflake.
# Communication - MS Teams vs Zoom vs Google Meet
1. MS Teams - Integrates really well with other MS tools
MS Teams has seamless integration with Outlook and OneDrive. I didn’t like it at first when we switched in late 2019, but after Covid it became decent. Once every other week or so, we would still get a random meeting with crappy video quality but reconnecting often solves the issue. Therefore, I see no point in moving to Zoom for team communication tool.
We used Zoom for our all-hands because MS Teams has a cap of 500 people per meeting - we had about 5,000 people in IT. This sounds like an engineering problem for Microsoft and not a moat for Zoom and I don’t see us using Zoom long term.
2. Zoom
My new company uses GSuite to handle email and calendar and Zoom for calls. Zoom has decent integration with GSuite and Slack and scheduling calls with people so far was on par with my experience with Teams. The call quality is much better but it’s not core to what we do and we can totally live with audio only.
One thing I miss was the OneDrive integration I had with Teams when it comes to file sharing. We switch back and forth from Zoom and Slack when we share files as a team on calls.
I am on the Zoom basic plan (the free tier) with a 40 minutes meeting limit so I don’t think each person in my company gets a Pro license. My SO who works in a major bank also has the same thing and not everyone gets a Zoom Pro license. Probably 1 in 5 to 10 seats are actually paid Zoom customers.
My opinion: It is hard for Zoom to displace MS Teams in the Microsoft ecosystem given how well it integrates with other tools.
3. Google Meet
I’ve only used Google Meet in a professional setting when I was talking to Google sales engineers. They cut out all the time – we have to turn off the video and sometimes their sales rep would drop calls due to technical issues. We joked with them that they should switch to Zoom and the Google reps shrugged.
In my opinion, Google Meet is not a threat to MS Teams nor Zoom - I don’t see why I’d use Meet if I’m not already using GSuite. Even in this case Zoom works better.
# Security - Crowdstrike
I found out after two weeks on my job that my Mac was protected by Crowdstrike Falcon. I couldn’t tell it was there until I specifically searched for security software in the system!
In my previous job, I had so much trouble with the Mac with whatever endpoint protection they used - constant VPN issues (Cisco), updates that forced you to restart or worse, bricked the system. From the day I received my Macbook, it never felt like I had my machine set up right the way I want it to be. Just getting my computer to work became a big time sink for me, my team (I was manager), and IT support.
None of the above frustration happened with the current company. I don’t know if I can fully attribute it to Crowdstrike, but so far the absence of evidence of interruption has been a great productivity booster for me as a developer. To reiterate: I had zero issues so far and I didn’t even know Falcon was there.
My opinion: Crowdstrike has been great. I believe CRWD’s moat is not about cloud nor AI. It is user experience. As a user who sees security as something that gets in my way of getting things done, I see endpoint seurity or antivirus software as necessary evil instead of value-add.
I believe Crowdstrike’s cloud-first, small client strategy minimizes security software’s impact on employee productivity which is much more valuable than the higher premium they charge per system. than their competitors.
Summary
- It is difficult for Zoom to break into Microsoft ecosystem and replace MS Teams.
- Crowdstrike Falcon had zero impact on my productivity.
Thanks you Saul and other members on the board of all your insights.