[whizzkid]

One of the few things that are left for end-users to not to switch to Linux is the Office product. I am almost sure that Microsoft is not releasing it on purpose because they are afraid of losing a big chunk of their customers to Linux.

[kristopolous]

That's a long term losing strategy and I think they're smart enough to know it.

I'm guessing their current response would be "we have Microsoft 365 for the web" which is becoming less and less adequate.

They'll eventually need to decouple the two and sell them independently. At the end of the day, they're a commercial software company - platform wars aren't in their interest.

[whizzkid]

I think they will hold on as long as they can to release it for Linux.

You are right that they are a commercial software company but they are trying to keep the Windows as "the platform" for enterprise companies otherwise it will be too hard for them to sell everything as a package.

office 365 for web is unfortunately not the same experience.

[kristopolous]

Microsoft's inertia is generation specific.

My father (70) and his cohort will basically only use outlook while my nieces and nephews (~18) when they get into the business world, they're not only unlikely to have any loyalty to outlook and office but they're unlikely to use email as a first tier communication and may not even use traditional word processing packages as a primary method of long form expression.

Nor will they have any of the branding impressions my father's generation had. A chromebook, macbook, or really anything else will be accepted as "alright, I guess I'm using this".

The desktop metaphor is quite stable as is the software. They will be, and arguably have been for ten years, broadly interchangeable.

Microsoft's current positioning is like 1980s IBM. The mainframe strategy worked so long as the people running the business thought they needed mainframes. As they retired out, IBM had to go elsewhere for profits.

And I'd bet the farm Microsoft knows this. They've diversified into video games, source code management, cloud computing, etc seeing this future ahead.

Also this isn't new for them. They're replaying their strategy from 1975-~1990. They never had the better products, they won because they had the better strategy.

Office was a good cash cow, but it's increasingly becoming a harder fit

[aksss]

I worry about the blind-spot the youngest workers may have in this regard.

When I was young and starting out in a corporate job, I also didn't have much loyalty to anything. This wasn't a function of a new age of tech Aquarius, it was simply because I was young and didn't have experience - no basis to form loyalties.

Youngest workers may not realize the value prop of Outlook and Excel fat clients simply because they haven't been hit with requirements that promote or even compel their use, but in the meantime those young workers are never getting highly proficient with the basics of using them. There's a reason more seasoned knowledge workers (not 70yo, but 30-60 for sure) rely on them beyond inertia - broader requirements, favored features, road experience and ubiquity.

Similar angle on your comment about platform loyalty - a young person won't be invested in a platform until they have the experience to recognize the penalties of swapping. Since I mentioned Excel already, keyboard shortcuts in Excel change across platforms. If Excel is considered a given part of your toolbox, this is one of the most aggravating things about swapping OS's periodically: your muscle memory doesn't apply. That's a real hit to productivity. Young people don't recognize this until they develop a skill level that will be impacted by these kinds of changes and are busy enough to not have time to deal with them.

So I wonder sometimes when I hear about that attitude - are they shooting themselves in the foot by not training early on or even having awareness of the potentially more advanced tooling options?

When I start getting into new hobbies I look at the tools the more advanced people use and learn what may (or may not) make them favored - as well as consider new ways of doing things. I also try to start on the better tools even if the learning curve is higher just so I can start racking up XP with them more quickly - so anticipating that a time will come when I too will leverage and appreciate the features, I'll not be starting from scratch. That's worked well.

[kristopolous]

No, this stuff is irrelevant. There isn't a natural progression.

Pittman shorthand, for instance, was a pretty useful system that only enthusiasts use these days. The most trivial change that axed this was purely social: men learned how to type.

Similarly, business is being done in different ways that will make other old useful tools less applicable.

The march to the grave starts at the crib, sorry about that.

[whizzkid]

Really interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing. You might be right about new generation’s focus shift. If that is true, an interesting future is waiting for us when it comes to business/work software.