Microsoft rewarded for security failures with another US Government contract

Instead, the government should fund competition to lower prices. It seems like Office is still the default for everyone and it’s not really possible for anyone to hire thousands of engineers for a decade or two to compete with them. There’s no functioning competition for a product like this.

Google, Apple, and various, other open and closed sourced alternatives exist for nearly everything in Office. Many of them have been under development for decades by companies that are similar in magnitude to Microsoft.

Lack of competition is definitely a problem in the pricing of some things, but I don’t think this is one of them, people just prefer what Microsoft offers and are willing to pay for it.

In a narrow view, this is true, but from a wider viewpoint Microsoft has few competitors in the "one stop shop for your big business needs" sense.

Google has made some progress here, but doesn't seem interested in a bunch of important spaces (e.g. they have Docs, but don't have anything like Active Directory or Sharepoint that I know of).

Microsoft is also often the default vendor, since virtually every big company has contracts with them for Windows and Office (at least) already.