Google wants to be in the enterprise market. Microsoft dominates the enterprise market right now, and they're doing a lot of things (Surface, Windows 10, Office 365, Azure) to extend their dominance. If you look at new versions of Office and don't see anything new in there for you, it's because you're not looking at the collaborative space. Microsoft is pulling the rug out from under Google Docs (which for some reason Google rebranded as Google Drive because they're so terrible at naming things) by adding anything Google's services have over Office AND having backwards compatibility with current Office docs. Google can't match that. Apple meanwhile has the MacBook line, which was and may still be the laptop to beat in the ultrabook space. They also have the iPhone, which is the top dog for people who can afford them, and the iPad, which has dominated the tablet space in terms of productivity. (Android is dominating the tablet space for consumption, but that doesn't help nearly as much in terms of enterprise).
The move to convertible devices is being driven by and catering to enterprise users. Microsoft is in the lead here with the Surface, and they're trying to extend this to their phones but they may not be able to overcome the handicap of nobody wants their phones. Apple is playing from behind here because there's walls between iOS and OS X that they won't cross, but they have inroads into the enterprise space, they have enough native iOS productivity apps that work well on tablets (Adobe and ironically Microsoft are both heavily into the iOS productivy app space, and that's a huge part of the market) that the iPad Pro is... unappealing to me personally but quite possibly will be successful in the marketplace.
Google has... Chromebooks, which have no apps and no market penetration outside of the very, very captive education market (where IT administrators just want computers so locked down that teenagers can't do too much damage). And they have Android, which (in tablets at least) has almost no enterprise penetration and very little in terms of productivity apps. And the merging of ChromeOS with Android in order to tackle the enterprise market and the Surface line and the iPad Pro makes a lot of sense. But I'm not sure either papers over the other's flaws enough to make it viable, and I'm definitely not convinced that they're going to be able to be combined in a way that incorporates what ChromeOS does well that Android doesn't, like system software updates.
Microsoft is pulling the rug out from under Google Docs
However, Office 365 for the Mac (2016) regularly crashes. All 4 of us that use it at my company have experienced this. I can't remember the last time Google Docs crashed or screwed up a document.
So, it amazes me that the quality of MS Office is so incredibly low. This is not the way to win any market.
However, Office 365 for the Mac (2016) regularly crashes.
Presumably, OS X 10.11.1 fixes some problems with Office 2016 when you are running El Capitan. I am two-minded when it comes to Google Docs and Office 365. On the one hand, Office 365 is an offer you cannot resist (especially the academic pricing). Microsoft Office documents are a fact of life, Office 365 gives you continuous updates and 1TB of OneDrive space.
On the other hand, last time I compared them, Google Docs' collaboration story was far better. Collaborative editing in Docs is really smooth, while in Office it was hit and miss.
The quality of MS Office on Mac in incredibly bad. Last week I had MS Office popped up around 10 sign in windows and then crash due I think to being on a corporate network which used a proxy.
The move to convertible devices is being driven by and catering to enterprise users. Microsoft is in the lead here with the Surface, and they're trying to extend this to their phones but they may not be able to overcome the handicap of nobody wants their phones. Apple is playing from behind here because there's walls between iOS and OS X that they won't cross, but they have inroads into the enterprise space, they have enough native iOS productivity apps that work well on tablets (Adobe and ironically Microsoft are both heavily into the iOS productivy app space, and that's a huge part of the market) that the iPad Pro is... unappealing to me personally but quite possibly will be successful in the marketplace.
Google has... Chromebooks, which have no apps and no market penetration outside of the very, very captive education market (where IT administrators just want computers so locked down that teenagers can't do too much damage). And they have Android, which (in tablets at least) has almost no enterprise penetration and very little in terms of productivity apps. And the merging of ChromeOS with Android in order to tackle the enterprise market and the Surface line and the iPad Pro makes a lot of sense. But I'm not sure either papers over the other's flaws enough to make it viable, and I'm definitely not convinced that they're going to be able to be combined in a way that incorporates what ChromeOS does well that Android doesn't, like system software updates.