Home › content

Analysis: Google’s Office Challenge Is Forcing a New Microsoft 2.0

Authored by Jay Baage on October 12, 2006 - 10:21am.
Google's new software, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, provides two free online services that are going to hit Microsoft where it hurts. When Google today introduced a hybrid version of its online spreadsheet and word processing applications, it is clear that it has many advantages over the current market leading Microsoft Office.

Jen Mazzon, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Google, spells out some of the advantages of Google's new software over Microsoft Office in her blog:

"Keeping your documents and spreadsheets online is a treat because you can access them from anywhere via a Web browser. You can also get feedback and contributions from others you invite without having to email around copies of files, because the current version is always online."

It is clear that Microsoft is at a crisis point in its 30-year history. Microsoft is set to release the 2007 version of Office in a few weeks time. The software giant still gets a lion's share of its income from sales of its Office program, sold at around $400. Google's online software is a big competitive threat, as it is free in a sector still dominated by Microsoft.

Google's new software represents an emerging challenge to Microsoft's core dominance in the office market. Google's products resemble classic disruptive technologies: cheaper, more convenient, no-frills solutions aimed at products with huge product margins whose complexity and usefulness have overshot the mainstream. History suggests that, if such products take hold, Microsoft will have an extremely difficult time competing. The company will be driven to the high end of the market, and, ultimately, displaced. So how will Microsoft respond? You can read all about it in my story about Microsoft 2.0 here.

Related Links:
Weekend Read: Microsoft 2.0 is All About Advertising
Better together: Docs & Spreadsheets
Google Docs & Spreadsheets Homepage
tags: Tech | Microsoft | Investing | Search | Google | Software | Portals | Analysis |



Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.