I think there were so may more reasons. But what I see is all internal apps moving to be web based. 5 more years and Office is really going to be the last thing tying up corporates to Windows.

Linux as it exists today on the desktop is still a headache. If anything, if office were ported to Chrome OS, that would be a real alternative.

Office already runs on Chromebooks via Google Play within the Android container [0]. Is it then worth MS' time and energy to port the browser interface as a Chrome OS 'native' app?

[0] https://support.office.com/en-us/article/how-to-install-and-...

o365's web interface is pretty much what you're asking for. It's a rent based model, but so are the desktop apps at this point (mostly). It wouldn't really surprise me to see an electron wrapper around o365 UI for a future release to unify the applications more.

The only part of "Office" I really even use though is Outlook (at work), and it's pretty good at the job it does.

Call me when Linux has anything that works as well as AD.

It does; it's called AD. :)

The actual problem is the lack of Group Policy support (or even a viable equivalent - preferably one that's cross-platform).

You just need a server running AD. Third party and browser SSO with AD is a solved problem.

FreeIPA?!