Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> That's maybe another way of showing that UX is not the winning differentiator in enterprise that it is in consumer.

But it is. That and useful features. Both of which Office has, and GSuite has not.

I don't remember the name of that "Word lite" program that was included with Windows for free around Vista/7, which could open less sophisticated .doc files and was a default binding for .rtf files. But compared to Microsoft Office, GSuite is like that program, but on the web.



I have worked in enterprise for 20 years and have always been watching the vast majority of my colleagues (by the numbers) struggle to make anything but basic use of Office. My experience has been that there are a few advanced users who enjoy the mastery of it enough that they know it inside out, but the majority of enterprise workers really just do pretty basic stuff with it.

Meanwhile, the killer app of G Docs (collaboration) is a very frequently unanswered need. People emailing attachments with ridiculous names like "contract_v2_final_finalforreal.docx", making conflicting edits that cannot be reconciled, carrying USB sticks around because their PPT presentation is too big for email and they can never figure out how to use shared folders, etc.


Hey, I'm looking into a solution to this problem, I wondered if there was a way to DM you about your experience? I've been working on something and would love to hear thoughts around how people solve this where gDocs etc don't. Thanks


Again this goes down to usability vs features.

Word has a lot of features and, for certain publishing needs, these are important.

But what gsuite adds is usability. You no longer need shared drives. You no longer need to email docs around, you no longer need Spec_new_v3_new.doc.

I don't even need my computer any more, I can use anyone's.

I also don't need the immense amount of publishing and formatting options word provides. What I need to do is create documents that can be shared and collaborated on easily.


i believe this was called WordPad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPad


Yes, that one, thanks!




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: