3 ms·

Google has drop in replacements for most of it. But that doesn’t solve the problem of using US tech.

m000 9mo ago
France have already developed their own (recently posted here) [1][2]. Also, the "there's no drop in replacement" line is just making up excuses for not acting. Yes, you will not get 100% of the Office 365 features out of the box. There will be some friction. It's simply ridiculous seeing EU bureaucracy preparing e.g. to ban russian oil [3], making life more expensive for all people, and balking on being forced to switch their stupid word processor. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46923736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46923736 [2] https://github.com/suitenumerique https://github.com/suitenumerique [3] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-propose-permanent-ban-russian-oil-after-hungary-election-document-shows-2026-02-24/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-propose-permanent...
- Forgeties79 9mo ago
  What France is doing is great but, as you’ll see discussed in that HN comment section, it is hardly an office suite. It’s not a full replacement by a long shot. I hope it will be one day though!
- Jolter 9mo ago
  Good luck convincing the government (or local councils) of Bulgaria to migrate to an office suite that’s available in French or English only. That’s beside the sibling comment’s point that this suite is not complete enough (yet).
- lukan 9mo ago
  "Also, the "there's no drop in replacement" line is just making up excuses for not acting" If you claim, that this is my position, please read at least one more sentence "So yes, one can (and should) build them. "
- mgoetzke 9mo ago
  Considering that I doubt most normal office-user people even use features in Word other than changing fonts etc I doubt that will be a big issue anyway.
  - MegaDeKay 9mo ago
    It doesn't need to be "most". "Some" or even "a few" can be enough to make a hell of a mess if those few have created documents that are key to the business in one way or another (proposals, end-user documentation, etc). And there are the other components to the suite like Powerpoint, Excel, and Project to consider.
    - einr 8mo ago
      So then act now, because the best time to act was yesterday, and the longer you wait the worse the mess and pain becomes. Not acting at all is not an option.
  - bdavbdav 8mo ago
    Not sure if you've worked in an office recently, but on google workspace I (we) use very regularly: - Group Editing - this ones hard to get right - Reviewing Tools - Automated document generation - Embedding of data-backed images from 3rd party tools Looking at my wife who works in government, they use it even more heavily, with a lot of complicated formatting, numbering, standards etc going into each document, plus OneDrive collaborative features on top of that. I suspect office-user people are where most of the features get used. Agreed, most people only use 15% of the features, but which 15% that is likely changes quickly person to person.
- weirdmantis69 8mo ago
  It is way more ridiculous to ask USA to protect you from Russia when you are funding the Russian military with your oil purchases.
Johnny555 9mo ago
The problem is that Google only covers "most of it", so even if it covers 99% of use cases, for that cases where it doesn't, companies still need MS Office. I worked for a startup that was all OSX desktops and Google Docs. Then when we hit 100 employees, the finance department required MS Office, so they used Office for Mac, then as we grew, they needed real MS Office running in Windows, so they ran Windows in Parallels, then as we continued to grow they moved to full Windows laptops. When I left the company (at around 1000 employees), almost a third of the company was on Windows (mostly in Finance, Sales, and other business departments). And the team supporting the 2/3 Mac desktops was about 1/3 the size of the team supporting Windows. Though I suppose it's easier for a government to move off Microsoft. When an investor tells you to use their financial modeling software that only works with MS Excel, it's pretty hard for a small company to refuse, but a government has more power to force others to conform to their choice.
- wasabi991011 9mo ago
  Any insight in to why the finance department (and other departments) required MS office?
  - Johnny555 9mo ago
    Their initial need for Office was some soft of forecasting model that they needed to update for a large investor. That was a big spreadsheet that ran on Office for OSX if I remember correctly. After that, I don't know what specifically they needed to use, they had purchased some software that required Windows and Office.
    - sho 8mo ago
      Call me cynical, but having been around the block a few times when I hear "need" and "require" my brain translates that to "want" and "it would be convenient if". I've done my share of forecasting for investors and am quite confident that there is nothing in any startup forecast that could conceivably "require" Windows. I mean, absolute worst case, just use SQL. The CFO just preferred Windows, that's it, I'd bet money on it.
clickety_clack 9mo ago
After using both extensively, there is no comparison between Google and the MS suite. Google’s apps are like a toy version of MS Office.
- Gigachad 8mo ago
  The Microsoft ones feel broken, buggy, and bloated with decades of crap. I guess there are some people using those weird edge features, but if you don’t, the Google stuff works way better.
kube-system 8mo ago
They're competitive but they're not drop-in replacements. Even office for Mac is not a drop-in replacement for office on Windows. It's pretty trivial to find significant differences that will be in use in any large organization.
- Gigachad 8mo ago
  Considering every job I’ve had in recent times has involved a switch between Google/Microsoft tools after being acquired, it’s about as drop in as anything gets in tech. Of course no product will be an identical replica of the Microsoft tools, but both get the job done.
  - kube-system 8mo ago
    It depends. If you're writing documents and sending email, it probably not gonna be too tough. If you've got 100,000+ lines of Excel macros, you're gonna need a pretty significant migration.

m000 9mo ago

France have already developed their own (recently posted here) [1][2]. Also, the "there's no drop in replacement" line is just making up excuses for not acting. Yes, you will not get 100% of the Office 365 features out of the box. There will be some friction. It's simply ridiculous seeing EU bureaucracy preparing e.g. to ban russian oil [3], making life more expensive for all people, and balking on being forced to switch their stupid word processor. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46923736 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46923736 [2] https://github.com/suitenumerique https://github.com/suitenumerique [3] https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-propose-permanent-ban-russian-oil-after-hungary-election-document-shows-2026-02-24/ https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eu-propose-permanent...

Forgeties79 9mo ago
What France is doing is great but, as you’ll see discussed in that HN comment section, it is hardly an office suite. It’s not a full replacement by a long shot. I hope it will be one day though!
Jolter 9mo ago
Good luck convincing the government (or local councils) of Bulgaria to migrate to an office suite that’s available in French or English only. That’s beside the sibling comment’s point that this suite is not complete enough (yet).
lukan 9mo ago
"Also, the "there's no drop in replacement" line is just making up excuses for not acting" If you claim, that this is my position, please read at least one more sentence "So yes, one can (and should) build them. "
mgoetzke 9mo ago
Considering that I doubt most normal office-user people even use features in Word other than changing fonts etc I doubt that will be a big issue anyway.
- MegaDeKay 9mo ago
  It doesn't need to be "most". "Some" or even "a few" can be enough to make a hell of a mess if those few have created documents that are key to the business in one way or another (proposals, end-user documentation, etc). And there are the other components to the suite like Powerpoint, Excel, and Project to consider.
  - einr 8mo ago
    So then act now, because the best time to act was yesterday, and the longer you wait the worse the mess and pain becomes. Not acting at all is not an option.
- bdavbdav 8mo ago
  Not sure if you've worked in an office recently, but on google workspace I (we) use very regularly: - Group Editing - this ones hard to get right - Reviewing Tools - Automated document generation - Embedding of data-backed images from 3rd party tools Looking at my wife who works in government, they use it even more heavily, with a lot of complicated formatting, numbering, standards etc going into each document, plus OneDrive collaborative features on top of that. I suspect office-user people are where most of the features get used. Agreed, most people only use 15% of the features, but which 15% that is likely changes quickly person to person.
weirdmantis69 8mo ago
It is way more ridiculous to ask USA to protect you from Russia when you are funding the Russian military with your oil purchases.

Johnny555 9mo ago

The problem is that Google only covers "most of it", so even if it covers 99% of use cases, for that cases where it doesn't, companies still need MS Office. I worked for a startup that was all OSX desktops and Google Docs. Then when we hit 100 employees, the finance department required MS Office, so they used Office for Mac, then as we grew, they needed real MS Office running in Windows, so they ran Windows in Parallels, then as we continued to grow they moved to full Windows laptops. When I left the company (at around 1000 employees), almost a third of the company was on Windows (mostly in Finance, Sales, and other business departments). And the team supporting the 2/3 Mac desktops was about 1/3 the size of the team supporting Windows. Though I suppose it's easier for a government to move off Microsoft. When an investor tells you to use their financial modeling software that only works with MS Excel, it's pretty hard for a small company to refuse, but a government has more power to force others to conform to their choice.

wasabi991011 9mo ago
Any insight in to why the finance department (and other departments) required MS office?
- Johnny555 9mo ago
  Their initial need for Office was some soft of forecasting model that they needed to update for a large investor. That was a big spreadsheet that ran on Office for OSX if I remember correctly. After that, I don't know what specifically they needed to use, they had purchased some software that required Windows and Office.
  - sho 8mo ago
    Call me cynical, but having been around the block a few times when I hear "need" and "require" my brain translates that to "want" and "it would be convenient if". I've done my share of forecasting for investors and am quite confident that there is nothing in any startup forecast that could conceivably "require" Windows. I mean, absolute worst case, just use SQL. The CFO just preferred Windows, that's it, I'd bet money on it.

clickety_clack 9mo ago

After using both extensively, there is no comparison between Google and the MS suite. Google’s apps are like a toy version of MS Office.

Gigachad 8mo ago
The Microsoft ones feel broken, buggy, and bloated with decades of crap. I guess there are some people using those weird edge features, but if you don’t, the Google stuff works way better.

kube-system 8mo ago

They're competitive but they're not drop-in replacements. Even office for Mac is not a drop-in replacement for office on Windows. It's pretty trivial to find significant differences that will be in use in any large organization.

Gigachad 8mo ago
Considering every job I’ve had in recent times has involved a switch between Google/Microsoft tools after being acquired, it’s about as drop in as anything gets in tech. Of course no product will be an identical replica of the Microsoft tools, but both get the job done.
- kube-system 8mo ago
  It depends. If you're writing documents and sending email, it probably not gonna be too tough. If you've got 100,000+ lines of Excel macros, you're gonna need a pretty significant migration.