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Comment by generalk | Hacker News Reader

  > The assumption underlying this whole article is that you 
  > don't "need" Office to do work. That somehow iStuff will 
  > fill in your missing productivity suite. This just isn't 
  > backed by reality.

It's absolutely backed by reality. Just because some offices will or can not doesn't mean it's impossible.

  > 2. Find me an office suite that does everything (email, 
  > database (Access lol), word processing, spreadsheet, 
  > simple programming, presentations) for a flat fee.

No.

Microsoft has convinced folks that they need one suite that does all of these things. This is patently not true. For example: I can use GMail, Keynote, Basecamp, and RTF documents to do everything I need to do, with heavier publishing-style stuff in Pages. If I need to interact with folks using Office, iWork has never failed to fill in that role.

Just because you're stuck in Office-land doesn't mean you have to be.

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You're suggesting that Microsoft has brainwashed the global business community into thinking they need a single suite to perform those tasks? I'd say it's more plausible that they arrived at that conclusion on their own since it just works better

I think it's more like it's the low-friction way to go. Most enterprises do not have as their core mission the production of documents. Dealing with documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. is a requirement but it's not their core business mission. Spending time identifying, installing, and managing a hodgepodge of other software to do what Office does has no return on investment. Specifying the standard complement of software for an employee PC becomes a 2-second exercise: Office. Done. Now I can think about something that might add value to what we do as a business.

It's not just some, though, is it?

I don't think that it would be a terrific stretch to say that any business outside of programming/webdev/design/etc with greater than 90% certainty uses Office.

Hell, a few years ago on one of my professional engineering exams I had a section devoted to macros in Excel. Just because we know of and use other tools doesn't make our experience the norm.

(and for what it's worth, I do my note-taking on gmail, my typesetting in latex, my math in octave, and my presentations in libreoffice...and still use Office at work because--hey, guess what--that's what I know is the common denominator for everyone)

I'm not disagreeing with you on the "lots of businesses use Office" point. It's true, and there's no getting around it.

The point of the article (also of my comment) wasn't "Nobody ever needs Office again" or "nobody uses Office anymore." That's silly, of course it's used. And it's not a bad product.

So a lot of businesses use Office. Great, we've established that point. But more to TFA's point: a lot of folks can get by fine without Office. You and I already knew we could avoid it. But now, folks who used to rely on Office are buying iPads and Macs (for instance) and getting productive things done without Office, whereas before they might not have realized they could do that.

>I can use GMail, Keynote, Basecamp, and RTF documents to do everything I need to do, with heavier publishing-style stuff in Pages. If I need to interact with folks using Office, iWork has never failed to fill in that role.

Do you use all of these only on the iPad or the iPhone, including Pages?

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