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mattbrewsbytes | on: Anthropic IPO
The biggest moat with applications like MS Office is compatibility. Sharing a slide deck or spreadsheet with others is a simple decision, you know they have it or have software that can read/write it.

I don't get the need to have Anthropic build their custom versions of MS Office apps, I can tell Claude to generate a word doc from a wiki page and it does a pretty damn good job. Anthropic's statistical median level of software that they had Claude create isn't going to replace Office apps to the point where companies cancel/stop renewing their MS Office subscriptions/licenses.

The other element is trust. Do end users trust their data in Anthropic's systems? A lot of people get creeped out when they search for content from one device in their household and then nearly instantaneously they start seeing ads from other devices on the same topic. How creepy will AI get if it starts consuming all your docs, spreadsheets, personal finance info, emails, etc.?

boringg | parent | next
I beg to differ I already am stopping using MS office recently but that's mainly because I really dislike how they lock up the apps if your late on your annual payment. It's a grating value capture model. I'm sure I will have to get back to it at some point but in the meantime google is providing great optionality and I don't have a concern that the software stack has glaring security concerns.

On the trust thing - I don't trust anthropic and I don't think MS has been a great steward over the years either.

steveBK123 | parent
The moat of backwards compatibility and plugins is why MS Office has survived decades of competitors without any appreciable loss of market share.

It's hard to see Anthropic replacing it, and even if so - why bother, the revenue is miniscule. They need 100 MS Offices for the compute contracts to pencil out.