Microsoft Office Is Still a Thing and Here Are the 8 (Sad) Reasons Why

This Software Refuses to Die

Burk

Apr 30, 2025

My Medium friends can read this story over there as well.

Let’s start with a simple question: Why are people still using Microsoft Office in 2025?

Is it because Word writes better than Google Docs? (It doesn’t.)

Is Excel secretly sentient, and we’re all just too afraid to delete it? (Probably.)

Is PowerPoint the only thing standing between us and total workplace anarchy? (Maybe.)

The truth is: Microsoft Office simply refuses to die. It’s survived recessions, pandemics, floppy disks, and even Clippy. Remember Clippy?

Here we are. 2025. In a world full of sleek, minimalist, cloud-based tools, people are still booting up Microsoft Word.

Why?

1. The Stockholm Syndrome of Software

Microsoft Office is “familiar.”

You know what to expect. Word has been crashing on us since Windows 95. That kind of loyalty is hard to find. They’ve added a gazillion features, but somehow it’s still familiar.

Companies especially suffer from this syndrome. They’ve been using Office for decades, and trying to switch is harder than getting a millennial to use TikTok instead of Facebook.

2. The Mafia Effect

Let’s be real: Microsoft has enterprise deals tighter than skinny jeans.

Companies don’t just buy Microsoft Office — they inherit it.

It comes bundled with Windows, Exchange, Outlook, and other tools that collectively make up what I like to call: “The Productivity Hostage Pack.”

You want to switch to Google Docs? Great idea. Until you try.

Find replacements for Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, and whatever other tool you use all the time. They’re all there, of course. But then you need to switch all.

That’s not just a switch — it’s an exorcism.

3. The Spreadsheet God

Excel is king.

People don’t just use Excel. They worship it.

It’s not just for numbers. It’s for budgeting, project management, KPI dashboards, and occasionally, building entire video games.

Apple’s Numbers? It can do much of what Excel can, but not all. And it doesn’t understand pivot tables. Everybody needs pivot tables.

Google Sheets is even closer, but once you’ve tasted the bloodlust of a 12-tab macro-powered Excel file that crashes your laptop every 20 minutes, there’s no going back.

4. Change is Scary

Let’s say you convince your company to ditch Office. Congrats!

Now you just need to:

Retrain 500 employees.
Rebuild every internal document, presentation, and process from scratch.
Deal with 37 emails from accounting about how “this Excel file looks strange.” (because it’s not Excel)
Watch your IT department implode.

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5. The Most Abused Software on Earth

I hate presentations.

PowerPoint was designed for visual presentations, but it’s become the tool for all corporate nonsense. Org charts, pitch decks, eBooks, wedding speeches, you name it.

You can do all. of that in other tools. Keynote for Apple lovers, and Google Slides for the rest of us, but PowerPoint still wins in the business world.

Why?

Because nothing says “corporate synergy” like a deck with 42 bullet points, a stock photo of shaking hands, and a pie chart no one understands.

6. The Compatibility Nightmare

Try sending a Pages document to your Windows-using boss.

Now count how many seconds it takes before they respond with, “Can you send this in Word format?”

Microsoft Office is the default. It’s the McDonald’s of software: not the best, not the tastiest, but everyone knows what it is, and it’s always open.

If you send someone a .docx, they’ll open it. If you send them a Pages file, they’ll assume it’s a virus.

And now, try sending them a link to an interactive, collaborative Google Docs file…

7. Status Symbol Software

(Not so) subtle flex.

Microsoft Office is paid. It’s premium. It’s…boring, but boring with money.

Google Docs is for students and startups. Office is for grownups (who still have a fax number in their email signature).

If you’re in a serious business and not using Word, someone in a corner office is going to raise an eyebrow.

Office is the boring default.

8. People Don’t Know Better

Let’s be charitable.

Many people just don’t know how good the alternatives are. Because they weren’t always good. Now they are.

Google Docs is fast, collaborative, and lives in the cloud. Pages is sleek and free, comes with every Apple device, and can do a heck of a lot.

Pretty much the same goes for Numbers and Keynote, as well as Google Sheets and Presentations.

The Bottom Line

Microsoft Office is familiar.

We keep passing it down because, well, it’s always been there. But you don’t have to keep using it. You can break the cycle. You can stop paying a ton for something, free tools can do too.

There’s a reason why solopreneurs, startups, and new companies start using other tools than Office, either the Google or Apple alternatives or different categories of tools entirely, like Notion, Craft, Monday.com, Airtable, etc.

Times are changing. And Microsoft can’t keep counting on familiar forever.