Comment by sgt
6 days ago
That might work for government employees using webapps all day. But for power users it is unlikely to be friction free.
6 days ago
That might work for government employees using webapps all day. But for power users it is unlikely to be friction free.
I consider myself a Power User, use of Windows is not friction free :)
Over the years I've come to believe that there is only one thing important: What you are used to. The friction is in the change process. Not in the destination.
As an independent, I have several customers on MS365, you know what my super power is? FireFox cookie containers. One for each org, and I switch with 0 effort between the orgs. No need for Windows in that workflow at all. In fact, using Windows and the native apps would probably give me a lot more friction.
Yes, sometimes I have issues. I.e. yesterday Word kept deleting my last 1-2 sentences for some reason, even though hitting ctrl-s tells everytime: "I should not worry". but in general it's fine.
My business is on Proton, and I love that MS365 AND Google workspace calender invites go right into my agenda with no effort. There is nice stuff out there. Especially now we have Proton Meet, I can take some ownership over videocalls in Teams and Google Meet finally.
>What you are used to.
Absolutely. I've given using a tablet (with keyboard) as an alternative to a laptop when traveling and it sort of frustrates me for a lot of things. But talking to people I know who have largely switched over, my conclusion is that, in general, I probably mostly just haven't put the effort and commitment to make it worth it for me. And I'm not sure, not spending nearly as much time on planes as I used to, it's worth it relative to getting a laptop that is even lighter than the combination.
As part of the human species, which has conquered our planet's poles, its deserts and its jungles, I believe we are in a unique position to adapt to many -if not most- circumstances thrown our way, and flourish.
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Unlike modern Windows, known for its lack of friction.
"We have two versions of Outlook and none of them are working"
There are four ̶s̶i̶x̶ ̶(s̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ five counting the web version) maintained Outlook variants on Windows 11, last I checked and I have issues with each one. Search especially, but then that has remained an unsolved problem for 30 years. I am sure "AI" will finally solve this.
Edit: Have checked and found that two I thought were still maintained (16 and 19) were EOLd in October.
I feel like this is perfect being the enemy of good. So lets say only 80% of their staff can get off Windows and the remaining 20% need to remain on it. That's a great start!
And you can require new custom software to be compatible and guarantee an initial market.
It's a strategic decision and of course it's not financially optimal.
And if in 20 years thered still a few windows computers around in their org that doesn't matter
And a recipe for failure. All 100% of their staff needs to be moved off of Windows at the same time.
A few years ago, IBM tried to move everyone to LibreOffice from M/S Office. It failed, the reason why was top level execs and some others were allowed to stay on M/S Office. As time went on, M/S Windows became a Status Symbol. So people went begging and as time went on exceptions were granted. A few even went so far as to buy their own copy, which was allowed.
After 8 months IBM gave up. If you want things like this to succeed, you must be 100% in.
There's a negligible amount of "power users" among government employees; I think the majority of them are trained in reading and applying laws, and given the strong scientific/literary divide in the French culture, they usually think of themselves as inapt with computers (and the erratic behavior of MS products didn't help, if you ask me).
But knowing France, what to really worry about is execution, in particular for administrations. Probably people working there who read the TFA already think "oh, big mess incoming" even though they don't know what this "Linux" thing is.
I think standard IT/sysadmin training focuses mainly on Windows server etc., Linux being a second class citizen (because that's what the vast majority of small/mid sized businesses use). So recruiting good Linux sysadmins could be an issue, especially since the wages in government agencies are not exactly attractive.
85% of cloud servers are Linux. It's not a niche product for people who work with servers.
I'm a power user and I've used linux for over 25 years. My corporate windows machine is total trash and completely unsuitable for any power users, either because its windows or because corporate locks it down so much it's barely more functional than a chromebook, I don't really care.
Can you call yourself "power user" when your point is that switching away from Windows is too hard for you?
Windows power users are the ones who have the greatest difficulty switching.
Basic users just want a web browser and need instructions for anything else anyway.
Hardcore geeks have tried everything going and have no problems with Cisco IOS.
It's the folk in the middle who struggle.
Just kidding about Cisco: it sucks.
Respectfully, so what? There have always be specific use cases and user bases requiring a specific OS. No one ever considered OpenBSD interchangeable with Windows, few see Linux distros as a 100% drop in replacement for someone relying on Logic Pro.
Thing is, I really don't get this knee jerk "but what about INSERT_RARE_EDGECASE". It isn't helpful and argues something no one actually working on these projects ever proposed. Even if MSFT software remains in use, any gained alternative is a win, license costs and strategic autonomy both being valuable.
And yes, as you hinted, a large contingent of clerical work may already happen in a browser, with any found exceptions potentially addressable in the coming years, especially as older implementation may be updated anyways.
Let's be honest, we all underestimate how much we (can) do solely inside the browser anyways and even more so severely misgauge how few people are reliant on any native (none Electron) software at all outside gaming.
Power user is such a nebulous term anyway. To me, someone spending hours on end in Confluence can be a power user, having never left the browser. The same for a designer using Figma. Course, if one truly requires native only software, they may more likely fall under the umbrella power user, but again, few are seriously discussing just forcing those over since, reasonably, one must presume they have a reason for doing what they are doing.
It doesn't have to be friction-free. The rough edges can be sanded down with government investment that addresses the needs of citizen-users.
“Well, did it work for those people?”
“No, it never does. I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but……
…But it might work for us!”
Power Users faced the same problems when Office changed to ribbon menus. It doesn't has to be friction free.
What is a power user in this context? Someone deeply familiar with Windows and has tons of Windows related setup/applications?
That doesn't sound like a government worker... They rely on Microsoft Office, but the actual operating system could be anything. The only non-portable application is video games really. While LibreOffice may not have complete excel functionality, the vast majority of functionality can be replicated in web apps/libreoffice. And frankly most of this work can be migrated to AI.
You can even skin Linux to look exactly like Windows if you want, or use Mint or something. But really all people need is to be able to open up Chrome and Excel.
In fairness, the transition away from MSFT 365 Copilot (as we all of course call Office now) might include more friction. Mountainous VBasic monstrosities are sometimes the way things get done in orgs I am personally familiar with and that can be hard to switch away from. In general though, I consider this focusing on edge cases as just not helpful, especially as one must start a transition to fully uncover them and get to addressing them too. I also don't think that ancient Excel scripts are an unsolvable problem, but one that needs to be very carefully handled.
I imagine the biggest thing they need to open up is Outlook.
Outlook has never been a requirement for work, you can very easily use any email client or outlook.com web app. Outlook is arguably the easiest to replace.
Excel is the only thing holding Office 365 together.
Word, Outlook, OneDrive, Teams, SharePoint are all very easy to replace
And if the decision away from Windows is an indicator, they will likely be moving email clients as well
That's also what Microsoft 365 is, a webapp, even the latest Outlook is a webapp.
Nobody in their right mind prefer the web apps over the native apps if they sit all day doing e.g spreadsheets. I tried the M365 web app for Word the other day and it's sluggish.
Sometimes organizations need to undertake work that is not friction free to achieve longer term goals.