The domination of MS Office

[archcommus]

So we know there are a lot of people in this world that use Office products, and of course there are haters, but most people seem to love the package and most of its contents. I can't picture how many businesses in the world completely rely on it.

My question is, where are the competitors? I can't think of a single other overall office package that includes the same pieces of software that is well known and known to be good. If MS had never made Office, would all of the world's businesses today be less efficient??? That's a weird thought. I'm sure most of you will say that if MS never did it someone else would have, but if that's true, why aren't they doing it now, in an effort to beat MS?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Barriers to entry.

To compete, any other suite needs to perfectly read and write all Office formats with 100% accuracy in order to exchange documents internally and with partners and customers. Also, every feature in Office that might be used by those documents must be available and work perfectly.

Before MS had the bright idea to bundle and intermingle a suite of applications as Office, MS did have serious competition. Word Perfect outsold Word, Lotus 1-2-3 outsold Excel.

But once MS came out with word processing, spreadsheet, database, and presentation apps as a unified package with somewhat unified user interface, competitors fell behind and never caught up.

Part of that (but only part) was the usual, typical abuse of the Windows monopoly: discounts on Windows if you sold Office bundled with your PC, and (IIRC) penalties if you bundled some other suite.

But mostly it was just that competitors fell behind on development of a unified set of applications. Now no software company has the spare billion or two to invest in challenging the dominance.

 

[luigi1]

I have to agree with the above poster. On there own each app had competition. It was the working together of word and excel. There is competition. Its called open office and works well. But it isnt real in the corporate sence.

 

[pcthuglife]

lol the company i work for still uses WP and Lotus. I'm trying to get them to switch to OpenOffice.

 

[PowerEngineer]

Having used a series of different word processors and spreadsheets over the years, I suspect that Office does so well because Excel IMHO is far superior to the other spreadsheet contenders. Word isn't all that good; I like WordPerfect better.

 

[Whitecloak]

I have yet to meet any app which comes close to Excel. Open Office is as good as MS Office as far as word processing, presentation creation etc are concerned.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Barriers to entry.

To compete, any other suite needs to perfectly read and write all Office formats with 100% accuracy in order to exchange documents internally and with partners and customers. Also, every feature in Office that might be used by those documents must be available and work perfectly.

Before MS had the bright idea to bundle and intermingle a suite of applications as Office, MS did have serious competition. Word Perfect outsold Word, Lotus 1-2-3 outsold Excel.

But once MS came out with word processing, spreadsheet, database, and presentation apps as a unified package with somewhat unified user interface, competitors fell behind and never caught up.

Part of that (but only part) was the usual, typical abuse of the Windows monopoly: discounts on Windows if you sold Office bundled with your PC, and (IIRC) penalties if you bundled some other suite.

But mostly it was just that competitors fell behind on development of a unified set of applications. Now no software company has the spare billion or two to invest in challenging the dominance.

That makes perfect sense.

It is amazing to me how all of the applications have extremely similar interfaces and menus, yet perform VERY different tasks, and are so powerful yet the GUIs are so easy to learn. You basically open it up and start using it, and it's cake even if you've never used them before.

 

[Schadenfroh]

It is what is taught in the schools in my area. I went through 2 years of vocational training and that is all they taught us. I also was taught only office in all my high school computer courses.

 

[igowerf]

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Barriers to entry.

To compete, any other suite needs to perfectly read and write all Office formats with 100% accuracy in order to exchange documents internally and with partners and customers. Also, every feature in Office that might be used by those documents must be available and work perfectly.

Before MS had the bright idea to bundle and intermingle a suite of applications as Office, MS did have serious competition. Word Perfect outsold Word, Lotus 1-2-3 outsold Excel.

But once MS came out with word processing, spreadsheet, database, and presentation apps as a unified package with somewhat unified user interface, competitors fell behind and never caught up.

Part of that (but only part) was the usual, typical abuse of the Windows monopoly: discounts on Windows if you sold Office bundled with your PC, and (IIRC) penalties if you bundled some other suite.

But mostly it was just that competitors fell behind on development of a unified set of applications. Now no software company has the spare billion or two to invest in challenging the dominance.

That makes perfect sense.

It is amazing to me how all of the applications have extremely similar interfaces and menus, yet perform VERY different tasks, and are so powerful yet the GUIs are so easy to learn. You basically open it up and start using it, and it's cake even if you've never used them before.

User interface design is a pretty big part of software development that people often take for granted. If it's done right, then you don't notice it at all.

 

[archcommus]

Originally posted by: igowerf

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Barriers to entry.

To compete, any other suite needs to perfectly read and write all Office formats with 100% accuracy in order to exchange documents internally and with partners and customers. Also, every feature in Office that might be used by those documents must be available and work perfectly.

Before MS had the bright idea to bundle and intermingle a suite of applications as Office, MS did have serious competition. Word Perfect outsold Word, Lotus 1-2-3 outsold Excel.

But once MS came out with word processing, spreadsheet, database, and presentation apps as a unified package with somewhat unified user interface, competitors fell behind and never caught up.

Part of that (but only part) was the usual, typical abuse of the Windows monopoly: discounts on Windows if you sold Office bundled with your PC, and (IIRC) penalties if you bundled some other suite.

But mostly it was just that competitors fell behind on development of a unified set of applications. Now no software company has the spare billion or two to invest in challenging the dominance.

That makes perfect sense.

It is amazing to me how all of the applications have extremely similar interfaces and menus, yet perform VERY different tasks, and are so powerful yet the GUIs are so easy to learn. You basically open it up and start using it, and it's cake even if you've never used them before.

User interface design is a pretty big part of software development that people often take for granted. If it's done right, then you don't notice it at all.

That's pretty much what all Office apps are like, IMHO. You think of what you want to do, go to where you'd expect it to be, and it's there.

 

[ActuaryTm]

The real power behind the Microsoft offering (as opposed to its competitors) is the integration and collaboration between the different applications in the suite and with a number of server level products - especially in the corporate environment.

No other suite offers nearly the same experience.

 

[ArchAngel777]

Most of us use Open Office at work. We cannot justify the insane cost of the MS counter-part. I will say that MS Office is a much more refined product (As it should be) but Open Office works just great.

Most small companys could easily get by with Open Office, it is the medium based companys that would struggle with something like this. Of course, this also depends on what type of company it is... Ya know?

MS Charges too much for their software... The sad part is that you could boycot them personally, but you end up suffering... So maybe they don't charge too much? People are buying them and the product is selling like hot-cakes... Oh well :-/

 

[SoundTheSurrender]

openoffice kicks ass

 

[aplefka]

My dad still uses WordPerfect. Has since as long as I can remember (we're talking since the days of the blue screen, red/orange cursor, grey toolbar at the top). He hates the fact that anytime he starts trying to do something Word always tries to help him. Pisses me off too, but not enough to switch.

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: archcommus

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons
Barriers to entry.

To compete, any other suite needs to perfectly read and write all Office formats with 100% accuracy in order to exchange documents internally and with partners and customers. Also, every feature in Office that might be used by those documents must be available and work perfectly.

Before MS had the bright idea to bundle and intermingle a suite of applications as Office, MS did have serious competition. Word Perfect outsold Word, Lotus 1-2-3 outsold Excel.

But once MS came out with word processing, spreadsheet, database, and presentation apps as a unified package with somewhat unified user interface, competitors fell behind and never caught up.

Part of that (but only part) was the usual, typical abuse of the Windows monopoly: discounts on Windows if you sold Office bundled with your PC, and (IIRC) penalties if you bundled some other suite.

But mostly it was just that competitors fell behind on development of a unified set of applications. Now no software company has the spare billion or two to invest in challenging the dominance.

That makes perfect sense.

It is amazing to me how all of the applications have extremely similar interfaces and menus, yet perform VERY different tasks, and are so powerful yet the GUIs are so easy to learn. You basically open it up and start using it, and it's cake even if you've never used them before.

kind of like adobe products, i know dreamweaver is better, but i am so used to the adobe gui that i use golive...