I just started in a new role for the past week, and one thing that struck me was the stark contrast between the Microsoft Ecosystem vs. Google-Office-Slack-Trello-Jira-others.

On paper, the two look similar, offering a similar suite of products that cater to similar needs (e.g. word processing, spreadsheets, slides, etc.)

In practice, the difference in user-experience is much more like this: Two sidewalks, one without a curb cut and one with a curb cut

What do I mean? Let me illustrate with a simple example.

When you open a blank Google Docs, you have a bunch of options in the blank document. And the meeting notes functionality is fully fleshed out with a single click. This is what you get with just one click: Google Docs Meeting notes template


In contrast, Microsoft Word requires a couple of clicks to see what templates they have (which do not include meeting notes): Microsoft Word blank

… before you get to a completely blank document, which still doesn’t help you take meeting notes! Microsoft Word blank


But it isn’t just about the clicking. The non-Microsoft ecosystem often has a much smoother integration than within Microsoft, which is quite ironic, given that the Microsoft ecosystem comprises of exactly one company. What do I mean by that? Again, let me provide another example.


Here is a picture from a Gmail (for a volunteer group I work with): Google mail integration with Slack

Notice how I can seamlessly forward any email to any Slack channel with just a single click in the Slack integration? Yup, that’s pretty much impossible in the Microsoft ecosystem (to my huge surprise!)

I can even email TODOs to my Trello board using Gmail: Trello Inbox with email integration Again, that is pretty impossible without a lot of complicated and complex pseudo-programming (with Power Automate) in the Microsoft Ecosystem.

To make matters worse, when Microsoft DOES have nice “curbcuts”, they do things like remove the curb cuts from the users. For example, I created a kanban using Microsoft List, and was pleasantly surprised to see that Sharepoint Alerts allow me to see a daily summary of the tasks in the kanban. “How neat! That’s not so bad!” I thought.

And as I was clicking around, I came across this retirement notice, highlighting that Microsoft was removing this curb cut… screenshot of the retirement of Sharepoint Alerts

🤦🏻‍♂️….

I must say, the experience is not all bad. I do remember a time when Teams was truly appalling, and Sharepoint was a distant inbred-third-cousin of Google Drive. Now, Teams is actually decent, and Sharepoint is now a LOT smoother in having multiple users edit a document at the same time, and there are also significantly smoother integrations between some of the apps.

But overall, the experience is really as I described above… it is one where yes, there is often integration up to a point. But what is missing is like a sidecurb(without curb cuts) for a wheelchair: small enough from a distance, but a complete blocker up close.

Microsoft has safely captured its corporate users with its cost-effective bundling & marketing. But actually, the real cost might be paid by the end-users who have to expend time and energy trying to figure out how to overcome these curb-height blockers.