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

Sally Vix wrote:

Companies that were on the top of the heap 20 years ago are routinely delegated to the bottom as swiftly as they rose to the top. What has Microsoft in general and Microsoft in particular able to withstand the challenges from competitors?

relegated not delegated

two words....corporate america.

my wife works for a huge firm. a few years ago they switched from traditional office products to all cloud based google products. this year they switched back. no one was happy with the google crap.

i also work for a huge company. we are locked into MS products (OS and office) and no plan to ever leave.

sales and marketing live on PPT

people who use Excel heavily love it

word sucks IMHO

visio is very popular for many sectors as well.

They’re too big at this point. The only thing you’ll see it the occasional signaling from another large company ie google with docs.

If google wanted they could create a new office suit but it would be a waste or resources as Msft foothold and user adoption is so high. But they will create products that achieve similar goals all be it less polished to keep Msft from extending themselves (bing) into googles bread and butter as revenue through browsing.

Both google and Msft know they can own the market if they crowd everyone else out so they kind of stay out of each other’s way as much as possible.

A competitor could beat Microsoft on price, but they would never overcome the hidden cost of everybody having to learn how to use a new suite of software.

I have Libre Office at home, it probably does everything MS Office can do. I hate it. If I need to do something on a spreadsheet, I log into my work computer using VMWare so I can use Excel. I know every keyboard shortcut, every trick in Office, I'll never ever be as proficient or productive using another suite of products.

Even as someone who doesn't like Office, it is just too ingrained in the corporate culture of today's workplace. It would be way too hard to switch.

I keep waiting for Google to take over, but it never seems to happen. As another poster stated, sometimes companies will make halfhearted attempts, but they never work out. My kids all use Google Docs in school, so maybe that is Google's plan.

Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior is well documented. That is largely why Office dominates now.

It is also an issue of the venture capital market. VCs want a 5-7 year turnaround on their cash. That is plenty of time if your product is truly new, like an app or a video game. But if you are trying to out perform an established product, it will take twice as long to perfect your product and build a significant market share. VCs do not want to do that.

You can probably find your answer here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp

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The Angel of Death wrote:

You can probably find your answer here

What's that got to do with anything. In case you didn't notice nobody uses Internet Explorer despite the fact that it is 'unfairly' bundled with Windows.

I've used google docs and it is garbage compared to the Microsoft suite. I've had everyone in my office transition away from it and back to Microsoft. Plus using google sheets it creates massive formatting and compatibility issues with the rest of the world who uses Microsoft.

At this point I feel like Microsoft is the equivalent of a Utility company. The infrastructure is built so that is pretty much impossible to use anything else. Sure one guy can do their own thing but it is far easier for businesses to go with the status quo. It would take a new product that is equivalent and a massive coordinated effort by many businesses across a range of industries to simultaneously move away from Microsoft. I just can't see anyone putting in the resources to make that happen and then having the business world go through the headache of making it happen.

Do you people not know about Open Office?

I haven’t used actual Office in probably 9 years. Use OO for on computer stuff and Google for cloud, know lots of people who do similar.

Microsoft also purchases (acquires/merges) the competition. From there, Microsoft either dissembles the start-up or transforms the start-up into a functioning unit of Microsoft.

"Since Microsoft's first acquisition in 1987, it has purchased an average of six companies a year."

Some examples:

Forethought, 1987: Forethought developed a presentation program that later would be known as Microsoft PowerPoint

Hotmail, 1997: Internet Software

Visio, 2000: Diagramming and vector graphics application, now known as Microsoft Visio

Semantic Machines

GitHub

Cycle Computing

Intentional Software

MetricsHub

You get the idea. If you can't beat the competition, buy them.

We have one guy in our office who uses OO.

Everyone hates when he sends a document because he either 1) keeps it in .odt format or 2) converts it to .docx and sends us an illegible, formatting nightmare.

I actually prefer the editing features and ease of Google Docs, but Google Sheets compared to Excel is like trying to compare a JV back-up quarterback to Lamar Jackson.

im at work wrote:

Microsoft also purchases (acquires/merges) the competition. From there, Microsoft either dissembles the start-up or transforms the start-up into a functioning unit of Microsoft.

"Since Microsoft's first acquisition in 1987, it has purchased an average of six companies a year."

Some examples:

Forethought, 1987: Forethought developed a presentation program that later would be known as Microsoft PowerPoint

Hotmail, 1997: Internet Software

Visio, 2000: Diagramming and vector graphics application, now known as Microsoft Visio

Semantic Machines

GitHub

Cycle Computing

Intentional Software

MetricsHub

You get the idea. If you can't beat the competition, buy them.

Were any of your examples competitors to Microsoft? You may have had a point there but your choice of examples was terrible.

Hardloper wrote:

im at work wrote:

Microsoft also purchases (acquires/merges) the competition. From there, Microsoft either dissembles the start-up or transforms the start-up into a functioning unit of Microsoft.

"Since Microsoft's first acquisition in 1987, it has purchased an average of six companies a year."

Some examples:

Forethought, 1987: Forethought developed a presentation program that later would be known as Microsoft PowerPoint

Hotmail, 1997: Internet Software

Visio, 2000: Diagramming and vector graphics application, now known as Microsoft Visio

Semantic Machines

GitHub

Cycle Computing

Intentional Software

MetricsHub

You get the idea. If you can't beat the competition, buy them.

Were any of your examples competitors to Microsoft? You may have had a point there but your choice of examples was terrible.

All those companies I used as examples posed a threat to Microsoft.

Microsoft's mission statement reads: "Our mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more."

Hotmail was doing a better job than Microsoft when it came to achieveing things through email. Rather than fiercely competing with Hotmail, Microsoft purchased Hotmail. Ever heard of Outlook? That used to be Hotmail.

Same theme with smaller companies that develop new ways of "empowering people to achieve more." Take Visio for example. It is a software to visualize process flows into a readible format. I use it all the time, and it is wonderful. Microsoft hadn't developed anything like that, or if it did, it wasn't as clear and stimulating as Visio. So they bought it, and it is now an offering in Microsoft Office.

Here is a list of notable companies Microsoft has purchased. This is how you keep competition down:

aoxomoxoa wrote:

We have one guy in our office who uses OO.

Everyone hates when he sends a document because he either 1) keeps it in .odt format or 2) converts it to .docx and sends us an illegible, formatting nightmare.

I actually prefer the editing features and ease of Google Docs, but Google Sheets compared to Excel is like trying to compare a JV back-up quarterback to Lamar Jackson.

This is the funniest part of this whole thread. "Office" work is just text and data. Text and data. Text. And. Data.

Like everything, really. And the ONLY reason something like, uh, the World Wide Web works is because of text and data standards. Not "formats" or "formatting."

I guess we live in a world where "work" is office-bound idiots choosing pretty font spacing for headers. Makes the world go 'round.

Wrong, none of those companies posed a threat to Microsoft because none of them created a competitor to one of Microsoft's products. They were acquired because they were an addition to Microsoft's products.

Anti-competitive behavior would be if they purchased a competing operating system or word processor or spreadsheet application that threatened their monopoly in those markets. Your examples are literally the opposite.

Alright, I see what you are saying. Here is an example.

Forethought was initially for Apple. The program allowed Macintosh users to create slides, transparencies and flip charts for use in presentations. Forethought was the exclusive distributor for Filemaker Plus, the once top-selling Macintosh database. In 1987, Microsoft saw Apple as being a dangerous competitor (which it still is) and bought Forethought for $14M, thus cutting off the supply to Apple.

That is Anti-Competitve behavior at its finest.

Sally Vix wrote:

Companies that were on the top of the heap 20 years ago are routinely delegated to the bottom as swiftly as they rose to the top. What has Microsoft in general and Microsoft in particular able to withstand the challenges from competitors?

I'm not clear on whether you're just asking about Office or Microsoft in general. In any case, Office is just one part of Microsoft's income. Large businesses use many of their other products. They are good and they are wide ranging. A few of the major ones used by businesses are Azure (cloud hosting), MSSQL (Database), Windows Server OS, Hyper-V (virtual environment) Exchange (mail) and System Center Configuration Manager (Software deployment/management).

Often software vendors only offer their products on a specific Operating System like Windows Server, or Linux like SUSE etc. This makes it difficult for a business to migrate away from those OS's. Same holds true for a database product and same holds true for email (Exchange is a MSSQL based product). Someone mentioned Outlook as email but Outlook is only an email client, not an engine - it doesn't actually move mail - in the MS world Exchange does that.

In the corporate world systems are often a mix of different vendors products and chances are good some Microsoft products are in most large businesses. They generate a LOT of licensing income for Micro$oft.

Don’t change what works.

That’s a basic rule for a successful life.