I'm using Google Docs for mostly everything. I've typeset one book using LaTeX and several using QuarkXPress on Mac computers.
We're simply not the target for Microsoft Word.
But with less and less need to write letters (we've got emails now) and more and more totally free and convenient solutions like Google Docs, the "target" keeps shrinking for Microsoft Word.
The corporate world won't change anytime soon: MS Office is their way of doing business.
But SMEs are fleeing fast: I'm seeing more and more shared Google Docs (both text and spreadsheets) used inside SMEs and even to exchange doc with the outside.
Want an invoice and you're on GMail? OK, I'm sharing the invoice with you so you can print it. Why bother printing it and sending a letter? Why even bother exporting it as a PDF and sending it as an attachment? Shared invoice (read-only) just so that the recipient can print it.
I'm not saying it's "great" from a security point of view to share a Google Doc with a customer / contractor but that's where we're at now: lots of SMEs aren't even bothering with Word and its incompabilities (whether they still exist or not not being the point: they do exist in the users' mind).
MS did a 180 degree with Office 365 because they know it's very real.
I realize that, 15 years ago, I used Word for things like writing manuals, printing cover sheets, formatting resumes, writing newsletters -- everything that was designed to be printed.
I haven't used Word in years. Every workplace of mine has used Google Docs instead. And for the first time, I realize it isn't just because of Google Docs collaboration and use-anywhere -- it's the fact that all the "power" features of Word, particularly formatting and layout, are all geared towards the printed page.
But I literally produce nothing designed to be printed anymore. Everything that used to be printed, is now thrown up the web. Fancy formatting is useless now if it can't be translated into HTML.
(For spreadsheets, there are still big reasons for power usage of those, so I don't see Excel going away anytime soon. But except for producing PDF versions of nicely formatted resumes, it's getting harder and harder to see why Word should even exist. And of course graphic designers need to produce typeset pages, but that's what page layout programs are for.)
We're simply not the target for Microsoft Word.
But with less and less need to write letters (we've got emails now) and more and more totally free and convenient solutions like Google Docs, the "target" keeps shrinking for Microsoft Word.
The corporate world won't change anytime soon: MS Office is their way of doing business.
But SMEs are fleeing fast: I'm seeing more and more shared Google Docs (both text and spreadsheets) used inside SMEs and even to exchange doc with the outside.
Want an invoice and you're on GMail? OK, I'm sharing the invoice with you so you can print it. Why bother printing it and sending a letter? Why even bother exporting it as a PDF and sending it as an attachment? Shared invoice (read-only) just so that the recipient can print it.
I'm not saying it's "great" from a security point of view to share a Google Doc with a customer / contractor but that's where we're at now: lots of SMEs aren't even bothering with Word and its incompabilities (whether they still exist or not not being the point: they do exist in the users' mind).
MS did a 180 degree with Office 365 because they know it's very real.