I think that's missing the point. If a "Microsoft-based company" is mandating IE9 and disallowing browser installs, they're not the sort of shop likely to be trying new office suite software (!) any time soon. Conservative markets are conservative, in general you simply can't market replacement products to them directly.
The only people switching older systems to Docs are the people willing to try new stuff, more or less by definition. A Chrome or Firefox install for these folks isn't nearly as invasive as junking Word and Excel is.
This isn't strictly true. I work in education and for a large part of our state the network and operating environment is managed by the education department, but services are largely left up to schools. This means we're left with IE9 as the default web browser but lots of students use Google Docs for their work (not to mention staff). I know other states look at or are using Docs across the board.
No. The story I've gotten when I pursued this with the department is the update cycle is too rapid to bother and automated deployment too difficult to manage.
The kids that use them tend to install Chrome themselves since it will install into their profile and they don't need permissions to the rest of the system. A couple of the kids use Firefox Portable.
Since a sad number of our staff (and a fair few students) have trouble just logging into a computer, this isn't really an option for the masses.
but this misses the point that often in these companies what you can install on your machine is incredibly locked down, which makes SaaS the only way to easily get new apps you can actually use. You may very well have users who want new software, but the only way they can do so is through the web, since installing new desktop software requires rolling a boulder up a hill.
Or, just wait until your SaaS is cutoff by the company firewall, something done at large companies with products like DropBox, Google Docs, Evernote, etc...
Yes we do this and we need to keep doing it. This is because despite masses of training, people still think it's fine to upload confidential documents and personal information to public dropbox folders and the like and stick our code on public github repositories...
Only the firewall can account for idiots well enough.
You make some good points about the ability of naive users to do really scary, damaging things; and about the frustrations of working in medium to big businesses.
Unfortunately, you do so in an unhelpful way. Please consider editing your comments. (Feel free to ignore me or tell me to fuck off. I'm just a user with no power).
The only people switching older systems to Docs are the people willing to try new stuff, more or less by definition. A Chrome or Firefox install for these folks isn't nearly as invasive as junking Word and Excel is.