Winds are changing direction.. Should Microsoft be concerned?
Possibly - I thought my company's network would be stuck with MS Office forever. But after receiving a quote of £30k to renew our OVS, we decided to take a very close look at how MS Office is utilised, we then ran an experiment giving users Libre Office, WPS Office and OWA.
Interestingly we found that it was feasible to completely replace MS Office for 80% of the company, and staff were more than happy with it. The only issue we had was a few members of staff hated OWA as they didn't get their pop-up calendar reminders.
So we compromised, we ditched Office Pro Plus, replacing it with Libre Office and Outlook for those 80% of staff, then remaining people got Office standard - We've managed to save about £60k over a 3 year OVS agreement.
BTW as a side note - Some resellers will tell you Office Standard and Outlook standalone are not available on OVS, don't listen to them, its bollocks!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
