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Comment by xbmcuser | Hacker News Reader

Google I feel has broken Microsoft Office monopoly the difference will be felt 10 years from now though. Earlier everyone had grown up using Microsoft office now most children will grow up using Google Office suite. Though I still think Google sheets is still way behind Microsoft Excel. The day Google can build a convertor that can convert all excel files and macros etc I would shift to Google sheets currently I have too many years of work to move to Google sheets. The next generation of students growing up with Google won't have the same problems.

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Isn't proficiency with Microsoft Office still expected in most workplace environments? Google docs, sheets, slides all fall short of the capabilities of their equivalent applications in Office. The Google apps are good enough for many tasks, but really don't cut the mustard if you are accustomed to the depth of capabilities in Office. Are we doing students a disservice by sending them out into the world without proficiency or even familiarity with Office?

I think if students know the basics from Google they'll be fine picking up Office. Lots of people learned Office on the job after coming from Lotus 1-2-3, or electric typewriters.

> Are we doing students a disservice by sending them out into the world without proficiency or even familiarity with Office?

No. As long as you understand how a spreadsheet works, and how to use some sort of Word clone, it's trivial to learn the specifics of Microsoft Office.

On the other hand, we are doing the world a service by promoting tools that are more readily available, and less proprietary. It would, however, be more helpful to replace Google Docs with free software like LibreOffice.

Totally agree in consumer space. School docs, team roosters, anything was MS forever and basically overnight I only get personal stuff in Google Apps. But work stuff still dominated by MS but some slight cracks.

Personally prefer Google Apps now.

Btw, kids school they have to use Google as workflow including plagiarism check all based on Google Apps. Pretty amazing and had thought MS Office monopoly unbreakable.

Office is hardly nuclear physics. Any college grad can reasonably be expected to pick up what they need within a week or two.

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