The only reason people still need office -- other than a niche of advanced Excel users -- is because no one, despite the last several decades, has managed to make a 100% compatible DOCX editor (not LibreOffice, not Apple Pages, not Google Docs). I'm guessing it's because there are aspects of it that MSFT keeps secret?
The only reason I still use Word is because I don't want to have to deal with random layout incompatibility issues when sharing docs with colleagues.
In general, I find Apple Pages much more pleasant to work with and by far my favorite word processor (and I have used them all extensively on Win/Mac/nix).
Microsoft was successfully sued by the EU for creating vendor lockin with their proprietary file formats. It is for this reason that the "X" formats (docx, pptx, etc.) are "open" and thoroughly "documented", e.g.:
However, the formats are incredibly complicated, because they evolved from earlier formats that represented nearly the entire in-memory state of the editing software. To a first order of approximation, the .doc format _was_ Microsoft Word.
Source: I worked at Microsoft during this time period and helped document the XLSX format.
DOCX is a terrible format though. If you don't need to edit a document, PDF is more reliable.
If you do need to edit, DOCX will invariably fudge up headings, numbering, ToCs, alignment of images/figures, keep-together not working properly for captions or tables, etc.
I think for the second usecase someone ought to introduce a completely new format that handles this a lot better. Or maybe the format is already there and it's ePub?
But then what's needed is an editor (on-prem server and local portable executable) that has the nice things like automatic ToC generation, foot/endnotes, track changes/document comparison, online collaboration.
The only reason I still use Word is because I don't want to have to deal with random layout incompatibility issues when sharing docs with colleagues.
In general, I find Apple Pages much more pleasant to work with and by far my favorite word processor (and I have used them all extensively on Win/Mac/nix).