Re:Microsoft's “Love” of Linux
by dredmorbius on Thursday November 21, 2019 @06:08PM
(#21600763)
The stumbling block at this point (and quite frankly, for most of time) for Linux / Unix office suites hasn't been features. It's been OEM bundling/tying, enterprise bundling/tying, and a "good enough" widespread and effectively universal userbase / skillset.
In establishing standards, diversity is a weakness, unfortunately.
I believe Skype for Business has been discontinued, but I may be wrong.
Edit: I actually bothered to check and the EOL is 2021. New customers are directed to Teams. I used Teams at work, and it’s crap quality UX, but it does the job. For chat at least. (PowerPoint crashed on me multiple times this week from within Teams.)
After a multi-year hiatus of using Windows (because my customers were running mostly on Linux, Mac OS or did BYOD), on my current industrial/research project I'm back to using Office (Skype for Biz, Outlook for team comm and partially Sharepoint, Excel and even PowerPoint (!) for spec docs) on Windows VMs and I have to say I can't fathom how these people can get anything done at all. Lync/Skype4b is bordering on ususable for me (normal Skype works just fine), and it not being available for Linux is a show-stopper. The only tolerable tool that doesn't get in the way all the time is Excel, and even that has laughably primitive versioning in SP compared to tools of the git era. With this office software lineup I think web-based tools will totally dominate the next decade.
Classic office suites on Linux is a sufficiently well solved problem with Open Office/Libre Office IMO, and I don't expect it to get any better, ever. The reason is simply that classic office software where people print out, sign, scan, paper-mail, and fax letters has run its course.