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I was put in charge of a nonprofit org's IT recently. Decided to listen to the previous leader's praise about Office 365 [edit: oh, Microsoft 365], which they u

I was put in charge of a nonprofit org's IT recently. Decided to listen to the previous leader's praise about Office 365 [edit: oh, Microsoft 365], which they use. Turns out it's a mess with all this weird Outlook + Sharepoint overlap. I'm pretty confused, and the less technical people there are totally lost. Makes me appreciate GSuite more; I think MS just really knows how to sell to whoever's in charge.

danpalmer 3y ago
MS sell the OS, which then sells the identity management, which then sells 365 and dynamics, which then sells Azure. It all links into each other. I'm not sure it's so much about convincing someone who's in charge, it's that from a relatively common starting point (Windows PCs) everything else flows sort of by default.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  That strategy makes sense, but 365 in particular doesn't seem to flow so well even from Windows. All those Windows users in our org are thoroughly lost on how to use it.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    Interesting. I haven't used Windows in a long time and haven't used Office since early high school, but I did get the impression there was still some amount of shared patterns and understanding.
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      I was in the same camp. After hearing glowing reviews from that one guy, I was expecting something harmonious and was willing to give MS another chance. After a few days, I lowered my expectations to "usable by everyone," like Windows is. Now I don't think it's that either.
- greggsy 3y ago
  The jump from M365 to D365 is significant, as is the jump to Azure. One can reasonably use the productivity suite independent of the vast suite of cheaper (and often more suitable) services that can be used in place of D365, not to mention Azure.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    I remember when my previous place was looking into Dynamics as an option for the company it seemed like it would be very much easier to deploy various Dynamics-adjacent bits to Azure, and we didn't want to be multi-cloud so this was a minor detractor for us. M365 to Azure is a bit more of a jump maybe, but there's AAD which I think is a bit of an on-ramp? Then I gather Excel is getting better at integrating with the data products on Azure? I think there's something there, enough to make Azure the path of least resistance for some orgs.

danpalmer 3y ago

MS sell the OS, which then sells the identity management, which then sells 365 and dynamics, which then sells Azure. It all links into each other. I'm not sure it's so much about convincing someone who's in charge, it's that from a relatively common starting point (Windows PCs) everything else flows sort of by default.

hot_gril 3y ago
That strategy makes sense, but 365 in particular doesn't seem to flow so well even from Windows. All those Windows users in our org are thoroughly lost on how to use it.
- danpalmer 3y ago
  Interesting. I haven't used Windows in a long time and haven't used Office since early high school, but I did get the impression there was still some amount of shared patterns and understanding.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    I was in the same camp. After hearing glowing reviews from that one guy, I was expecting something harmonious and was willing to give MS another chance. After a few days, I lowered my expectations to "usable by everyone," like Windows is. Now I don't think it's that either.
greggsy 3y ago
The jump from M365 to D365 is significant, as is the jump to Azure. One can reasonably use the productivity suite independent of the vast suite of cheaper (and often more suitable) services that can be used in place of D365, not to mention Azure.
- danpalmer 3y ago
  I remember when my previous place was looking into Dynamics as an option for the company it seemed like it would be very much easier to deploy various Dynamics-adjacent bits to Azure, and we didn't want to be multi-cloud so this was a minor detractor for us. M365 to Azure is a bit more of a jump maybe, but there's AAD which I think is a bit of an on-ramp? Then I gather Excel is getting better at integrating with the data products on Azure? I think there's something there, enough to make Azure the path of least resistance for some orgs.