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The problem is that if you are locked in with a choice of 100% Microsoft or 0% Microsoft, once someone goes, it isn’t a baby step, they are gone. Once you start using Google Docs and the related suites, you have no need for Office. That means you, or likely your company, saves several hundred dollars a head. No need for Office means no need for Exchange. No need for Exchange means no need for Windows Server. No need for Office means no need for Windows. Once the snowball starts rolling, it picks up speed a frightening pace. And that is where we are. The barriers to exit are now even more potent barriers to entry.

Every sentence in the above paragraph is untrue.

First, even though who go with, say, OpenOffice or Google Docs, will still need the full blown Microsoft version to communicate with the rest of the world. I say this as someone who oversaw IT within a company and kept it 80%WordPerfect, 10% MacOS, 10% Word.

There's plenty not to like about Microsoft, but other companies are not without their "treacle". Apple treats the corporate environment like gum on its shoe. A lot of important hardware does not have Linux drivers or worse, very poor ones. There are entire categories of software (ERP, for instance) where not only the best of breed, but the five or six best of breedrun either on Windows only or on a mainframe. The MS Exchange server coordinates with a lot more than MS Office and has features of its own that make it a viable choice, MS Office notwithstanding.

The fact is for a company that doesn't innovate, Microsoft still has the best of breed spreadsheet despite the #$%%^ ribbon, a word processor that works a lot better than the free competition for corporate purposes, two database packages that do well in their spaces (SQL Server and, still, Access, even though I greatly prefer FileMaker Pro), a very good (if corruptible) organizer/e-mail client with Outlook. Niche business products that are still top tier (Visio, Project), stuff that brings it all together, (e.g. Sharepoint), and a whole bunch of marginal and bad apps that still draw in support from consumers and businesses that don't want to spend more for a better product (Publisher, Expression).

The fact is that MS Office is actually priced competitively enough to lock out the next Lotus Office/Novell Office/Star Office. WordPerfect is relegated to niche player status for those who do heavier formatting or legal-oriented stuff, and the rest, which miss useful features, are free.

In the enterprise space, Microsoft is committed to providing server products and development tools that will keep it in play, because their developers' products HAVE been innovative and competitive. Yes, they try to corrupt every standard (HTML5, Java, XML) that comes along, but in the meantime they have built a loyal raft of programmers, and Microsoft is willing to mostly stay out of the hardware game, ensuring that there will be a very wide range of suitable computers for its products to run on.

They ain't dead, or close to it, in the corporate realm. Most of the other big players HAVE to do business with them. That's not a bad place to be.