[jrm4]

This is going to be very true right up until it isn't.

Yeah, I know that sounds fake-deep but we've seen this before; I'm old enough to remember when WordPerfect was the standard that wasn't going anywhere.

It will just be one of those inflection-point thingies.

[stevenbedrick]

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I did want to point out that a big part of what made it possible for Word to displace WordPerfect in the legal world was, literally, the fact that Word implemented full support for WordPerfect's file format including all sorts of weird quirky edge cases.

So, an analogous "Word-killer" today would presumably have to implement all of the docx format's weird quirks etc. On the one hand, the file format is standardized and open, so in principle that should be possible; on the other hand, it's a pretty gnarly file format, with a lot of nooks and crannies. Ironically, I remember hearing once that some of the weirder nooks and crannies of the docx format have their roots in... Word's WordPerfect interoperability features.

And as somebody who recently spent far more time than he expected to trying to reliably get data _out_ of a set of mildly-complicated docx files, I can report that the various fiddly details that the OP notes as being particularly important in the legal domain --- very specific details of paragraph formatting, complex table structures, etc. --- are a huge PITA to deal with when working with the docx format.

[jpbryan]

Yes, exactly. A successor could theoretically replace Word, but first it needs to replicate all of its existing functionality.

For a competitor to supplant Word, it would need to:

- Be fully backwards compatible with .docx. Lawyers will inevitably receive .docx files from counterparties that they need to review, redline, and mark up. The new processor has to handle everything Word does flawlessly. (As an engineer who has spent considerable time building a high-quality docx comparison engine, I can tell you this is tremendously difficult.)

- If it introduces a new file format, support seamless comparison and conversion between that format and .docx. Not technically impossible, but also tremendously difficult with marginal upside.

- Defeat the Microsoft Office bundle in the market — meaning it either offers enough advantage that organizations pay for both, or it replaces Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook too.

Given the enormous challenge of building a viable Word competitor and the marginal room for improvement that Microsoft has left on the table, I think it's very unlikely that a competitor will threaten its market position.

[nradov]

For certain legal use cases SaaS is still a non-starter due to security concerns so this hypothetical MS Word competitor would also need a native local application option. I don't think Google is interested in that market.

[JumpCrisscross]

> but first it needs to replicate all of its existing functionality.

And be compatible with docx. The pedanticly-correct title for this article would be the immortality of docx.

[OCTAGRAM]

R7 Office is implementation of docx

[breve]

As the US government becomes more erratic and untrustworthy it will encourage large organisations to look for alternatives to American software and services.

The stated intent of the US National Security Strategy is to destabilise and undermine Europe. That is a big incentive for European organisations to replace Windows, Office, and any other Microsoft service.

Linux and LibreOffice usage will grow as a direct consequence of the US government's new antipathy to Europe.

[kjellsbells]

Maybe, but imagine you are some EU commissioner, your choices look like this:

1. Fund a home grown alternative. Spend millions of Euros all the while fighting off a barrage of complaints that EUWord doesnt do things, costs too much, is burning taxes and productivity, etc.

2. Spend a nominal sum, but kick the project into the long grass, and hope that the US retreats from its stance back to the norm. "Maybe Word will be ok in 2027 after midterms, right? or 2029? Maybe I stick my fingers in my ears and tough it out"

2. is realistically what most politicians would do. Making tough, really difficult decisions is not something they like to do.

[breve]

> Spend millions of Euros all the while fighting off a barrage of complaints that EUWord doesnt do things, costs too much, is burning taxes and productivity, etc.

Or just learn from the experience of others:

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Austria-s-armed-forces-switch-t...

This stuff can be done and already has been done in some places.

[IAmBroom]

> The stated intent of the US National Security Strategy is to destabilise and undermine Europe.

Cite, please?

[retrac]

The leaked US National Security Strategy docs outline a plan to break up the EU:

> However, a longer, unpublished draft of the document was circulated prior to the official, public strategy. It reportedly goes into more detail about the plans the US has in store for Europe. According to the Washington-based digital media platform Defense One, which claims to have seen the draft, it lists Italy, Austria, Poland and Hungary as countries that the US should "work more with … with the goal of pulling them away" from the European Union.The White House has denied the existence of any such draft.

https://www.dw.com/en/will-trump-pull-italy-austria-poland-h...

Despite the WH claims it seems to have been generally accepted as true already in Europe; Germany's chancellor has commented publicly on it.

[breve]

Here it is: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-N...

Discussion:

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/breaking-down-trumps-2025...

https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/12/trumps-new-national-sec...

The points on Europe are:

> Our broad policy for Europe should prioritize:

> • Reestablishing conditions of stability within Europe and strategic stability with Russia;

> • Enabling Europe to stand on its own feet and operate as a group of aligned sovereign nations, including by taking primary responsibility for its own defense, without being dominated by any adversarial power;

> • Cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations;

> • Opening European markets to U.S. goods and services and ensuring fair treatment of U.S. workers and businesses;

> • Building up the healthy nations of Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe through commercial ties, weapons sales, political collaboration, and cultural and educational exchanges;

> • Ending the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance; and

> • Encouraging Europe to take action to combat mercantilist overcapacity, technological theft, cyber espionage, and other hostile economic practices

This is aligned with what Russia wants. Russia has cultivated Trump as an ally and it appears to be working.

The US is explicit in its intention to meddle with and undermine Europe by "cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations" and celebrates "the growing influence of patriotic European parties" (i.e. authoritarian, right-wing parties like AfD).

The US is explicitly attempting to annex European territory. Trump says the US will take Greenland "one way or the other". The US has been caught running an influence campaign in Greenland trying to promote its secession from Denmark: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0j9l08902eo

Given American's new direction, de-Americanising your infrastructure and supply chains makes sense. It's sensible risk reduction.

[jccalhoun]

Yes. Wordperfect was the favorite of lawyers for a long time.

[dpoloncsak]

Imo, as long as companies are paying for E3 licenses, they won't pay for another solution. And they'll be paying Microsoft for licenses as long as they have Active Directory, right? Seems like the whole Microsoft ecosystem is built on AD (and probably Excel too)

[knallfrosch]

Yes, AD is the value proposition. Your employees can get cloud-synced, multi-user real-time editing of documents. This is what kills the "but my Linux app can do it for free."

It runs on-premise, has all kinds of certificates and has a history of half a cenutry (give or take.) That kills Google Docs.

It's cross-paltform, killing whatever Apple thinks it has.

Too many people think Word is a text editor. I'd use Notepad++ if it had full AD integration. But it doesnt.

[bgnn]

French and German governments are working on an alternative to this: https://docs.numerique.gouv.fr/home/

[orthoxerox]

They also have Grist, an Airtable replacement.

Which I see this "suite numerique" integrates as well.

[thewebguyd]

> And they'll be paying Microsoft for licenses as long as they have Active Directory, right?

They'll be paying long beyond on-prem AD as well. EntraID is becoming the new identity system. If you're already on E3/E5, you might as well make use of it, and making most use of it means being stuck in the whole Microsoft ecosystem.

Why bother looking for alternatives, even if one particular product might be better, when Microsoft gives you literally everything at at least a mediocre level, for one price and pre-integrated.

[dpoloncsak]

>Why bother looking for alternatives, even if one particular product might be better, when Microsoft gives you literally everything at at least a mediocre level, for one price and pre-integrated.

This is exactly why we switched from Zoom to Teams

[marcosdumay]

If you keep linking enough problematic options in an "all or nothing" package, at some point people flip to the other choice you are giving them.

It's looking like Windows will be more of an issue here than anything in Office. But either way they can only push people so far.

[thewebguyd]

> It's looking like Windows will be more of an issue here than anything in Office.

And even then, Microsoft will be happy because even if Windows were to dissappear tomorrow, people would still be buying Microsoft 365 licenses and just using the very same tech and app stack from their mac.

[OCTAGRAM]

Mac OS X Server has Open Directory, and there were others