Why has Microsoft Office lasted so long? Why has no upstart supplanted in all these years?

Inertia wrote:

I use LibreOffice if I'm on my laptop and don't have an internet connection to log in to my work PC. The UI is painful.

It sounds as if you are addicted to the Microsoft Ribbon. An ugly UI.

David S wrote:

I try to use LaTeX to write papers and share them with Overleaf, but one of my collaborators doesn't know how to use LaTeX. So we have to do everything in Word.

So yeah, +1 to the critical mass argument.

My primary problem with Excel is that my datasets are too large and Excel is too slow. I do a lot of python, even for spreadsheets that start as Excel.

Damn, using word for something better suited for latex sounds like a nightmare.

I imagine the set of people who are using features that are convenient in excel but not in libre or sheets yet who aren't doing complicated enough tasks to warrant using using a package in something like python must be pretty small. What percent of weekly excel users actually utilize more than the very basic features? Less than 5%?

Complaints about u.i. also come across as being more about lack of familiarity than bad design.

There are so many spreadsheets that are years and in some cases decades old with hundreds or thousands of custom calculations and queries and macros and scripts that don't translate going to another spreadsheet application. Many of these documents are owned by people in Finance or Accounting departments. Money talks and those departments have a lot of influence when it comes to switching ... or not switching office products.

First company I was at, was purely MS Office and we were acquired by a company that forced everyone to go to Google and then less than a year later we were back on Office because all of our customers/Vendors/Suppliers were and they couldn't collaborate on any of the spreadsheets.

Second company was also acquired and making the transition, but our business unit's development stack is Microsoft and have to run both side by side, while the rest of the parent company and subsidiaries are only on Google.

Google only works if everyone in your spreadsheet ecosystem is on Google.

Excel is the best spreadsheet program out there, bar none. Super rich when you get into the fine points.

But Google Drive is convenient for personal use, and has great collaboration features.

For data analysis I'll use R or Python.

And when everything really needs to look nice, I'll use LaTeX and Beamer.

Microsoft has some advantages, but I have very little use for it in my personal life.

Gotta control the five forces

This was not to do with Microsoft Office and had to do with Internet Explorer. Since Internet Explorer has such little market share anymore I don't think it can server as a possible explanation.

Other explanations I have read here are better. It takes a long time for a product to mature along with the people that use them. Products like Excel, Outlook and Word are all well adopted in Corporate America. Powerpoint is now the go to presentation software which I think even prevails in the schools.

A lot of people such as myself that worked in the industry at the time and now did not agree with Janet Reno going after Microsoft. To me it just felt like a political attack from Silicon Valley vs Seattle which had so many great start-ups at the time. Many companies have been just as guilty as Microsoft with the same practices. I don't see any attempt by Apple or Android in adding Internet Explorer or other browsers into Cell Phones.

In terms of Cell Phones my favorite is the Windows Phone. It is much simpler than the Android and cheaper than an IPhone. However, it already has failed in the market probably for the same reason -- got into the market late and low adoption rates -- Customers are already familiar enough with Android.

paremata wrote:

I don't see any attempt by Apple or Android in adding Internet Explorer or other browsers into Cell Phones.

^ Foolish comment. You can download Microsoft Edge which is the same MS browser as Internet Explorer on an iPhone.

First Mover Advantage.

Foolish comment -- you can download it but it does not come installed. That was same with Netscape at the time. The lawsuit claimed that it should be available on the desktop.

paremata wrote:

Foolish comment -- you can download it but it does not come installed. That was same with Netscape at the time. The lawsuit claimed that it should be available on the desktop.

You really are stupid. Does a windows phone come with everything already installed, including other companies's software, like Safari and Chrome? Does no Microsoft App store exist users are allowed to install what they want?

Jerry Maguire wrote:

First Mover Advantage.

Excel was not by any stretch the first mover. Ever hear of Lotus 1-2-3 and VisiCalc.

Some good answers here. I would add that the State of Arizona switched from Outlook to Gmail and it's one of the worst decisions they've ever made. There were just many very basic functionality issues - for example, you couldn't drag and drop an attachment from one email to another

Ping Pong Prince wrote:

... for example, you couldn't drag and drop an attachment from one email to another

"Instead of dragging the image to the body, drag and drop onto the Attach file icon. It’s that simple! The attach icon will show a small icon change and the images will be attached as files immediately. Although it’s a small adjustment to your workflow it has a huge impact as it fixes one of Gmail’s biggest annoyances."

Jamin works for Bill, so can't be trusted. I prefer nano over Notepad and do Lotus 123 spreadsheets in my head. Keynote over Powerpoint, but would rather avoid all meetings and presentations by insuffurably boring humans. Nothing worse than a Human Resources administrator who thinks they are amusing because of pictures and flashy fades in the PP presentations. Well, there's always the VP of Fianacne who knows how to color their cells and insert pie charts thanks to their secretary.

There is no future in computers! Come join the Neo-Luddite revolution.

T.M.A.D.D.D.H.A.S.F.N.E.

Easy to understand, because the office is the best thing we all have. Al. of the workplaces, all of the documents everywhere are being written in this form, and if everybody uses one thing, why would someone change it and make others uncomfortable? From the beginning of the computer era, we started with Microsoft, and now we all pay to Gates because of its genius marketing way. We have no alternative as we are not looking for it. Recently my Office had some problems, but I had plenty of ways to solve them, all found online. The best idea was to buy it from https://www.licentie-discounter.nl/product/microsoft-office-2021-kopen/, and it helped me a lot.