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Yep! I think Microsoft lulled people into a false sense that they weren't doing anything with Office, while the Google suite gradually gained features (and to b

Yep! I think Microsoft lulled people into a false sense that they weren't doing anything with Office, while the Google suite gradually gained features (and to be fair, does 90% of what a normal person would ever do with documents). But it turned out they were busy making every feature in Office work in the collaborative environment, with versioning. It's incredibly impressive, and I am not a natural fan of Microsoft. It doesn't work as well as Google with a crappy or nonexistent Internet connection, but in your typical office environment it's great. I think people will be really surprised at how easily you can do things like assemble slides for a collaborative presentation. Sharing with people outside the organization requires a Microsoft account of some kind (either institutional or your old Xbox Live or Minecraft account) but that's about it. A high fraction of everything can be done in the browser, so it's easier than ever to have a Linux desktop. Plus have you see they have LateX equations now?

wenc 6y ago
Yep, this is why as a pragmatist, I'm all about "reviewing my priors" from time to time. Things change, constraints change, and we need to constantly update our views. I lived through the days of Microsoft being predatory and evil and I hated Microsoft because their products sucked (not sure if anyone remembers the strident rhetoric in comp.os.os2.advocacy -- that newsgroup raised Microsoft hatred into an art form). For years this emotional response blinded me to the pockets of genuinely good technology that Microsoft had in its lineup (like SQL Server). When I started working in an enterprise environment, I often ended doing things the hard way because of this blind spot of resisting anything Microsoft. It cost me so much. It was only when I was forced to put aside my prejudices that I discovered that it was actually possible to be productive while using Microsoft tech. Nowadays I favor pragmatism and productivity over partisanship, and try to choose the best tool for the job, and if it means choosing MS tools occasionally, that's ok.
CPAhem 6y ago
Syncdocs https://www.syncdocs.com/ https://www.syncdocs.com/ is a tool that lets multiple Microsoft Office and Google Docs users collaborate in real-time on the same document. It uses Google Docs for versioning.

wenc 6y ago

Yep, this is why as a pragmatist, I'm all about "reviewing my priors" from time to time. Things change, constraints change, and we need to constantly update our views. I lived through the days of Microsoft being predatory and evil and I hated Microsoft because their products sucked (not sure if anyone remembers the strident rhetoric in comp.os.os2.advocacy -- that newsgroup raised Microsoft hatred into an art form). For years this emotional response blinded me to the pockets of genuinely good technology that Microsoft had in its lineup (like SQL Server). When I started working in an enterprise environment, I often ended doing things the hard way because of this blind spot of resisting anything Microsoft. It cost me so much. It was only when I was forced to put aside my prejudices that I discovered that it was actually possible to be productive while using Microsoft tech. Nowadays I favor pragmatism and productivity over partisanship, and try to choose the best tool for the job, and if it means choosing MS tools occasionally, that's ok.

CPAhem 6y ago

Syncdocs https://www.syncdocs.com/ https://www.syncdocs.com/ is a tool that lets multiple Microsoft Office and Google Docs users collaborate in real-time on the same document. It uses Google Docs for versioning.