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You know the saying about how majority of users of certain very powerful packages only use a tiny fraction of available functions?

Allegedly Microsoft found out that the problem was that the features covered by that fraction were wildly different in case of MS Office. That is, any cut down, simplification, etc. would result in huge amount of disappointed users, because the used featuresets didn't really overlap outside of certain core. At the same time trying to package it into market segments might just mean you end up with too small niches.



It wasn't just Microsoft. Joel Spolsky had a lot to say on the subject: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/03/23/strategy-letter-iv...




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