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> Breaking compatibility on Windows has always ended up badly for Microsoft, as it goes against the culture they themselves created on the PC. I would say it w
by smackeyacky 3y ago
> Breaking compatibility on Windows has always ended up badly for Microsoft, as it goes against the culture they themselves created on the PC.
I would say it was less of a culture and much more of a marketing/lock-in strategy that worked extremely well for decades. Firstly by being the most popular windowing environment that still ran MS-DOS apps, then being the only windowing game in town when they rug-pulled OS/2. That consolidation enabled Office to become dominant and that compatibility took over as the cudgel to keep the world locked to Windows.
Microsoft, for the first time, is betting against their own OS with the web version of Office. I can rent Office on a monthly basis and run whatever OS I please to access it (mostly). But if I no longer absolutely have to have an Intel based Windows machine that lock-in has to shift to Office online.
What processor you have will be irrelevent to them, they'll dump native app development as soon as they can because it's no longer part of their bulwark of defences, it's now an encircling trap they need to break out of.
- 486sx33 3y agoOffice on the web is brutal.
- putlake 3y agoOffice on the web is actually great. They did the hard work of making it work with most of the features you want to use. It's definitely better than Google Docs. It's a daily driver for me. Yes, sometimes I'll switch over to the corresponding desktop app, especially if I want to copy paste images e.g. select a range of cells in Excel and paste them as a picture in Powerpoint. The switch from web to app is usually seamless. (I'm on a Mac).
- pjmlp 3y agoIt is still quite far behind the native version, every time I think I can do everything on the Web version, as soon as I need some advanced formating on Word/Powerpoint, or more powerfull expressions on Excel, I end up downloading and further editing on the native version. Google Docs is okayish if all I need is Office 97/Works kind of experience, Office 365 I would probably place it around Office 2013.
- smackeyacky 3y agoI'd much rather deal with Office 365 than I would Windows 11. Office 365 could definitely stand some improvement, Windows 11 is brutal.