Google Announces Office 2.0

If anyone here reads techmeme, then today is Google day, easily half of the page is dedicated to this story, the story of Google releasing more beta products to try to claim market share from Microsoft. Google released the info to some of the top tech sites, but not to any of the big blogs, like Techcrunch, etc. And I think it becomes very apparent that a lot of the people writing about it have never tried Googles offering, they just trumpet whatever they are doing at the moment. From InformationWeek,

For such sharp rivals, the contests between Google and Microsoft have been laughably lopsided.

And they still are.

Google this week will launch Google Apps for Your Domain, a software bundle aimed at small and midsize companies. The free, ad-supported package combines Google’s E-mail, calendar, and instant messaging with Web site creation software. It will be hosted in Google’s data center, branded with customers’ domain names, and packaged with management tools for IT pros.

That’s the first step. Later this year, Google plans to add its Writely word processor and Google Spreadsheets to the suite, build online collaboration features that work across its applications, and market the whole package to large companies for a fee. Google will include IT-friendly features such as APIs, directory-server integration, guaranteed performance levels, and telephone tech support.

Instead of trying to displace the hundreds of millions of copies of Office installed on business PCs, Google will try to snare users once they start sharing the Word and Excel files they’ve created. “The right way to view Writely and Google Spreadsheets, especially in the context of a larger business, isn’t necessarily as a replacement for Word or Excel,” says Matt Glotzbach, head of enterprise products at Google. “They’re the collaboration component of that.”

That is probably their best shot, if they can get Office users to start using some of their software for collaboration before Microsoft releases theirs, they might be able to do something, but as for competing head to head with Microsoft, they are a long ways off, and, as most of their releases, this must still be in beta.

Michael Arrington of Techcrunch says,

Customers clearly want Office documents stored on servers instead of, or in addition to, local storage. And while it’s not clear that there is great demand yet for online creation of documents (the experience is still nowhere near as good as the desktop products), the ability to collaborate on reviewing and editing documents is important, and this must occur online to be effective.

Well, they want Office documents stored on their own servers, not Googles, and this is already a piece of cake by sharing folders locally through the server, why would any business want to store their important documents on Googles datacenter? Have they conducted surveys to see what these people want, or is this just what they think they want?

Google and Microsoft are approaching this from very different positions. Google has a clean slate but has to play catch up in customer acquisition and in building compelling functionality. And while Microsoft has a lock on customers at this point, their need to protect a huge revenue stream puts them at a distinct disadvantage. Who wins this fight could very easily be settled in the next 12 months, after Office 2007 and Vista hit the market and Google fleshes out its offering. But regardless if the result is that the cost of creating office based documents falls, the consumer wins.

A distinct disadvantage? I don’t see it, at all. This clearly gives them the advantage over Google, as they will really have to create something new and unique to win over Office customers, or they are going to have to copy Microsoft’s software, which is what it appears everyone is doing so far. The best thing for them to do is the collaboration portion, as Microsoft has not released their collaboration effort, it will not come until Office 2007 ships.

I really like Techcrunch but I just have to wonder how much he got paid for this statement,

And while all of this is going on, Zoho is quietly building a really excellent online office suite of its own. Any of the other big guys could also quickly enter this game with a timely acquisition.

It just doesn’t fit and should not have even been included in the article, especially considering they are a sponsor.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels Posted in: Google, Microsoft, Office 2.0, Web 2.0 No Comments » August 2006