Re:The PC’s Death Might Also Mean the Web’s Demise
by blueskin_ on Tuesday January 14, 2014 @09:05AM
(#7057054)
I use LibreOffice, and most people at work use either that or MS Word. At home, it's a mix of LibreOffice and OpenOffice.
My old job used to use Google Docs, but I always felt like I was working against it rather than with it, and I know I wasn't the only one - still a lot of .docx, xlsx, odt, etc being sent around and on fileshares despite the policy being to hand over sensitive company data to google.
Google Docs is the most obvious example of this -- I don't know anybody who uses Microsoft Word anymore. Obviously I'm in a little bit of a bubble that way, but they've certainly got a large enough user base to grow from.
Google Docs works while offline, and the same techniques could work on the competitors I mentioned.
In terms of lock-in, all of the services I listed are in the "underdog" phase of growth, where lock-in does more harm than good -- a good interop story with their competitors is more important than the benefits of lock-in. Of course, if they ever reach dominant status this might change, but at the moment, all of the ones I'm familiar with have good & prominent import & export options.