For more than 20 years, Microsoft Office has served as the world’s default white-collar work tool. If you get paid to sit in front of a computer for a living, you probably use Word, Excel, PowerPoint and/or Outlook as part of your routine.
But chances are you don’t do this out of love. And you probably weren’t hanging on Steve Ballmer’s every word as he announced the new features of the latest Office release Monday. Like a box of Kleenex or your trash can, Office has become part of the work world’s furniture. Even if you work somewhere chic enough that the recycling bin is SimpleHuman and the tissues Puffs Plus, ubiquitous .doc files encroach on your work life. You may be a passionate design-loving advocate of “delightful” user experiences, but good luck going a week without encountering an .xls, much less a .ppt.
Why is this? How can it be that software so defiantly unfashionable as “The Microsoft Office for Windows” holds more than 90 percent of the business productivity software market to the tune of more than $20 billion in annual sales?
via Wired
July 17, 2012
