For several years, Microsoft has been promising a compelling vision in Office 365: a common platform of productivity and collaboration tools that all departments could use, with the extra security assurance of integrating policies and access into Active Director. Over time, Microsoft delivered a compelling road map for how all the pieces would work not just in Windows but in other operating systems like OS X, iOS, and Android.
Today, Microsoft still offers that road map. But it has built little of the actual road to get to the promised destination.
WithOffice 2016 for Windows now available, completing the delivery of the modern versions of Microsoft's productivity suite, the publications at IDG — InfoWorld, Computerworld, Network World, CIO.com, ITworld, CSO Online, JavaWorld, PCWorld, Macworld, TechHive, Greenbot, IDG News Service, and IDG.tv -- decided it was time to use Office 365 to its fullest. Our most acute need was messaging within and across groups, but we also wanted to take advantage of document sharing, group calendars, and online conferencing, activities we had been doing ad hoc.
What really struck us after launching this review was how iffy the Office 365 collaboration tools still are. We were very much hoping we could standardize on Office 365 across the board, but the truth is that we can't.
The biggest reason for that isMicrosoft's continued poor support for Macs, which comprise the majority of PCs used by our editorial and development groups. There are some Office 365 collaboration features that are very compelling, but still kept from the Mac. There were also some tools that simply didn't work well, even in Windows.