[em-bee]

why will libreoffice not do? just the difference of the UI, or incompatibility worries?

in my opinion these are just transition issues. iaw. it's not a problem with libreoffice but the problem is that there is a transition.

same with a windows VM. just the issues with interaction with documents outside the VM, or that using a VM is not really solving the problem of getting rid of windows?

[bombcar]

Interoperability is still an issue, and people who are already suspicious of you messing with their shit really do not want a “different office” at home than at work.

[em-bee]

people who are already suspicious

see, that's the problem. it's not a technical issue. it's lack of trust. i am not saying that there are no issues, but by far the biggest issue is and has always been expectations and trust. the expectation that there will be no problems, which is not even fulfilled when you upgrade windows or word, and also the subtle differences, quirks that you got used to, are different now.

it's resistance to change, while completely missing that microsoft forces more change on their users than linux or libreoffice ever did. if we could sell a switch to linux/libreoffice as a windows upgrade, people would moan, but it would not be any worse than an actual windows upgrade.

[deng]

By far the biggest problem is interoperability with people using MS Office. I'm fully aware that Microsoft is essentially sabotaging this by making their format deliberately obtuse, but here we are.

The VM thing is tedious to set up, requires more resources and, as you say, does not really solve the problem. Also, there's the problem of Windows activation in VMs, which - at least officially - requires an expensive retail key.