Microsoft Dependency Has Risks

For most businesses, the cost and difficulty of shifting away from Microsoft outweigh the benefits

Maybe.

Some things go deep, true. However most businesses don't use most of Microsoft products - even the ones that do, the usage of the more complicated products is far more minuscule than imagined by e.g. CFOs, etc.

The real thing keeping many "in the fold" as it were would be authentication services.

Which are overcomplicated and probably easier to manage without...

Right, it’s stuff like Active Directory and how everything’s tied together. Once you’re using that for auth, it’s really tough to back out without a lot of effort.

We’ve looked into FreeIPA and similar options, but honestly, nothing really holds a candle to Active Directory yet.

AD and Domain Servers are like a cancer that will grow metastases around your org, costing user and client cals all over the place, even for every desk phone if you're not careful. The only winning move is never to play their game in the first place.

I'm in a situation where due to staff skillsets and ease of management then GPOs are required. Local GPOs would be insane to manage across thousands of PCs

InTune/MDMs are finally eating away at the need for GPOs for most use cases. Someone already familiar with AD & Group Policy should be able to easily transition to InTune Configuration Policies. MS even has a tool now to import your GPOs.

There's still a few that don't have direct equivalents, but the list is growing smaller and smaller.