[DanielHB]

To be fair in 2007 it really did seem like google could completely destroy microsoft monopoly on enterprise software with google docs, google sheets and google workspace.

And then they just didn't? They just gave up, only small companies use google workspace these days and excel is as entrenched as ever.

I suppose the google meet/google talk/google hangouts explains a lot of why this hypothetical future didn't happen. If google had a serious person in the helm doing long-term strategy microsoft would already be dead and buried (or worse IBM-fied). Instead the CEOs stock market min-maxers took over.

[lotsofpulp]

I think Google leaders were smart to not take on Excel, especially after it was clear Microsoft was moving things to the cloud and spinning up Office 365.

There is no way a competitor could sustainably price a competing product against a low monthly or annual cost Excel/Office/OneDrive SAAS option, since the majority of the workforce was already trained on Office products, and everyone is using an edge feature that a new competing product might be missing.

[DanielHB]

I completely disagree. Google was already cloud-native with docs and sheets in 2007 while people were emailing excel files back and forth. It took like 10 years for microsoft to get there. And one drive is still terrible compared to google drive to this day.

The teenagers at the time (me included) were all using google sheets and google docs instead of MS products for _years_ before being introduced to the workforce. So the "trained on Office" argument was just an obstacle, not a breaking point if they kept at it for years.

> There is no way a competitor could sustainably price a competing product against a low monthly or annual cost Excel/Office/OneDrive SAAS option

If google had taken on microsoft heads-on they could have sued them into oblivion for anti-competitive practices in pricing if they tried that.

No, they just decided to not execute on the strategy, they did start but didn't finish. Arguably it was to focus on mobile and Android, but I see no reason why google couldn't do both considering all the wasted products they had over the years.

[Attrecomet]

Where do you find these low monthly cost options? Using Office is considerably more expensive than it ever was for a business, and the profit margins are huge.

And if anyone could sustain an office suite until it runs profitably in these circumstances, it must surely be Google...

[lotsofpulp]

I don’t know that office 365 is more expensive than before, if incorporating time and stress into the equation. Businesses get to dispense with all their IT staff basically and just let people access everything via a browser. And it’s a lot less technical for the managers to manage users and licenses.

But the problem for competitors is say you are able to make a product just as good as Excel. You start selling it $x, but Microsoft can almost always go down to $x-1 since their marginal cost is near zero.

Maybe Google or some other big company has the cash flow to plow money into subsidizing this bet for many years, I can understand not wanting to make that bet.

Google Docs and whatnot came out all the way back in the late 2000s, but it still didn’t see any measurable adoption by the time office 365 was out. Maybe it is because Google didn’t stick with it and develop it, but I still think it was a long shot.

[DanielHB]

> Google Docs and whatnot came out all the way back in the late 2000s, but it still didn’t see any measurable adoption by the time office 365 was out. Maybe it is because Google didn’t stick with it and develop it, but I still think it was a long shot.

It didn't stick because google did not pursue the strategy to take over enterprise. Google Docs by itself is not going to displace Office 365 and IT management tools, you need the whole suite of products.

[butlike]

Google Drive/Suite seems more of a way to get Google off of an external corporate dependency, Microsoft, rather than a way to enlighten users. All of their products do.

[scarface_74]

Microsoft Office enterprise is $12 per seat.

[TheRealDunkirk]

Per?... month?

[scarface_74]

Per seat per month

[nunez]

very big companies use Workspace and the full suite of Google Docs products within.

[DanielHB]

Examples? I right now work in one, but I wouldn't call my company big (<200 people).

From my (limited) experience google workspace doesn't really offer the level of control over employee computers that microsoft solutions do (like limiting what you can install or tuning settings). So it is a non-starter for any big company.

[shaftway]

Of the recent places I've worked, both use it. Block was at ~14,000 employees, but I think they're currently at ~12,500. My current company uses it, and we're ~2,000.

[hawaiianbrah]

My ~3000 person company (a subsidiary of Microsoft!) even uses Google workspace

[scarface_74]

Hell Amazon uses Microsoft Office internally and is pre-installed on all corporate computers and Outlook is the standard

Amazon is the second largest employer in the US.

[nunez]

Broadcom uses Google Workspace; 20k+ employees

[scarface_74]

It’s 90/10 Microsoft/Google

https://www.enclyne.com/3-reasons-why-companies-are-migratin...

[gadders]

Yes, I don't disagree. Microsoft did seem to be going the way of IBM.

But yeah, Google had no long term strategy, or ever gave any impression of a road map.

[DanielHB]

It is funny how it is easier for google to acquire companies than do strategy in-house. Like they buy Youtube and Android and then pump them with resources instead of trying to do in-house.

If they had bought a video-call company instead of doing inhouse with google meet they would probably have monopoly on that too.