I think the point is that people have been trained (either by MS or by themselves) that they need Office to get something done.
The copy of Word on my mother's computer was recently corrupted somehow. Printing didn't work, and if you tried Word became non-functional until you wiped out all stored preferences.
She didn't know what to do. She just wanted to type up recipes, little notes to friends, etc. My brother showed her TextEdit and she had what she needed. She is used to Word. When you need to type on the computer, you use Word.
But it's not like back when she was using her dissertation. I wouldn't expect people to type a dissertation in TextEdit. But when all you need is to type up little rich text documents, TextEdit works great.
I think there are a lot of people like that. They've been trained on Word and think they need word. Far a large number, there is tons of other software that can accomplish what they want.
What I got out of the article was the author's realization that because MS didn't have Office ready, people were forced to make due. They had to use Pages or Keynote. Or maybe they just used email directly. But some of those users learned that they don't really need Word... and that could be a dangerous trend for MS.
There are always people who need the features of Word, or some of the really advanced stuff in Excel.
But most users just type up text in Word and add a little formatting. Most users use Excel as a grid, sometimes putting a formula or two in. Powerpoint is used to write text, put up images, and animate a bit.
All those use cases can be easily replaced with other, simpler, software. Now that some users know that, they might stop buying Office.
The copy of Word on my mother's computer was recently corrupted somehow. Printing didn't work, and if you tried Word became non-functional until you wiped out all stored preferences.
She didn't know what to do. She just wanted to type up recipes, little notes to friends, etc. My brother showed her TextEdit and she had what she needed. She is used to Word. When you need to type on the computer, you use Word.
But it's not like back when she was using her dissertation. I wouldn't expect people to type a dissertation in TextEdit. But when all you need is to type up little rich text documents, TextEdit works great.
I think there are a lot of people like that. They've been trained on Word and think they need word. Far a large number, there is tons of other software that can accomplish what they want.
What I got out of the article was the author's realization that because MS didn't have Office ready, people were forced to make due. They had to use Pages or Keynote. Or maybe they just used email directly. But some of those users learned that they don't really need Word... and that could be a dangerous trend for MS.
There are always people who need the features of Word, or some of the really advanced stuff in Excel.
But most users just type up text in Word and add a little formatting. Most users use Excel as a grid, sometimes putting a formula or two in. Powerpoint is used to write text, put up images, and animate a bit.
All those use cases can be easily replaced with other, simpler, software. Now that some users know that, they might stop buying Office.