With the impending business launch of Microsoft’s Office 2010 on Wednesday, rival Google is telling businesses to keep the Office they have — and add Google Docs, not 2010. The counter-strike comes as Microsoft’s newest version of its crown jewels will feature free online versions, a clear competitor to Google’s in-the-cloud productivity suite approach.
Google Enterprise President Dave Girouard told news media that “Google Docs works quite well with Office and, in fact, it makes Office better.” He pointed to opposite approaches between the companies — Microsoft is adding online components to its desktop applications, while Google offers online apps that do not need a desktop version.
‘No One Has To Buy Software’
Girouard said adding Google Docs to the old Office version is not so much a pitch from Google as it is an echo of what he hears his customers are doing.
Salesforce.com’s CEO and cofounder Marc Benioff has also chimed in on the competition between the two giants — on Google’s side.
“No one has to buy software anymore,” he told USA Today. He said software has gone online because “users are just completely frustrated with the lack of innovation that has occurred in traditional business software,” noting that Microsoft’s SharePoint and IBM’s Lotus Notes are designed “for systems whose days are gone by.”
Benioff reiterated his oft-repeated conviction that we are now in the second generation of cloud computing for business, which he calls Cloud 2.0. This era, he has said, is designed for BlackBerrys, iPhones and iPads, and its central functionalities are “collaboration, social computing, communication, entertainment and information management.”
The Office 2010 suite will include a free, but limited, online component. The consumer version will be available in June.
Is .doc Obsolete?
Sheri McLeish, an analyst with Forrester Research, said Google “has an uphill battle” to compete with Microsoft…