Microsoft Office: the Handwriting is on the Wall

Periodically Microsoft comes out with a revision to its Office software suite, but recently there's no compelling reason for most users to upgrade [bold added]

you don’t need to keep buying new versions of Office. Microsoft hasn’t added a ton of new innovations to typesetting and presentation building—those all work just fine on what you’ve already got.

Since the dawn of the PC era, white-collar workers--by the way, who actually wears white collared shirts any more?--have had to adapt to major software changes required for their jobs. Your humble observer, for example, became quite proficient with the early-1980's word-processing program, MultiMate, then had to relearn the shortcuts when his next employer used WordPerfect, and finally converted to Word when that program became dominant in the 1990's.

Spreadsheets followed a similar path. VisiCalc, the killer app that spurred the sale of Apple II computers, was a marvel in its time. Lotus 1-2-3 became a necessity when the IBM-PC was ubiquitous in the corporate world. Through fair means--and perhaps some foul--Microsoft won the spreadsheet war with Excel, also part of Microsoft Office.

The age of mobile devices has given an opening to competitors like Apple and Google, but their offerings have fallen short---so far. Microsoft has defended its turf because some of Excel's functionality still cannot be duplicated and has been embedded in critical corporate systems.

Nevertheless, the handwriting is on the wall, if for no other reason that startups don't want to create systems with old technology. As its clients wither away so, inevitably, will Microsoft Office.