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Google Declares War on Microsoft
hajmola writes "According to an article in The Inquirer, 'Google has confirmed that it will launch free spreadsheet and word-processing software online and take on Microsoft in one of its biggest markets. Under the deal, Google will allow web users to access Sun's OpenOffice from a toolbar.'" This is full confirmation of a story from Tuesday. Forbes thinks this isn't anything to write home about, while InfoWorld disagrees.
Excuse me. StarOffice is Sun's. OpenOffice is ours.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
How does this help me when I have no network connectivity?
1. Customers win as there are better cheaper choices
2. Google wins because well just because they are google
3. Microsoft because they can now say they have competition
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
What exactly does from a toolbar mean?
Is it a web app?
Where does it run from?
-- You're too stupid to be an atheist.
A few years ago, the world's leading computer company almost went under because it didn't understand the paradigm shift that had happened.
Because IBM didn't understand the value of the desktop to the user, and Microsoft did, IBM lost big time. Only by totally reinventing themselves as a service provider FIRST and a computer company second did IBM survive.
Today, Sun and Google understand the value of the internet to the user, and Microsoft doesn't. They never have. That's why to this day, despite numerous losses and being forced to bow to consummer demands, MS thinks "embracing and extending" open network protocol standards is a good thing. Microsoft can not survive a market place they don't understand. No business can.
You either make money, or eventually you fail, that's the reality of business. In a world where computer software production is becomming more and more commodity production, MS doesn't know how to survive. Sun and Google do. So, Bill, meet Sam Palmisano, he can teach you a bit about what you will need to do after the bankrupcy . . .
has there been any legitimate hint that they are going to combine to offer spreadsheet/word processing via the web or is all of this just speculation?
.doc/.xls formats, but AJAX is completely different from a normal application GUI.
Not only is it just speculation, it's just speculation from stupid people.
There's no way in hell Google or anyone else is gonna make an AJAX-based front-end to StarOffice or OpenOffice.org; that's a retarded idea. Google could build their own AJAX-based word processor and spreadsheet, and maybe license some of the code for importing/exporting
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Ignoring the fact that this seems like more speculation (already well discussed with less then 10 comments), how exactly is this a threat to Microsoft and its Office family? Microsoft's main customer for it's 500$+ office suite is not home users, but businesses. Taking away some home users (half of whom where likely running pirated copies) is like a drop in the barrel.
For a business, dropping out $500 isn't much, especially when compared to wages (this is something OSS needs to understand when they try and convince businesses they're cheaper - the initial cost is meaningless, they want figures on the support cost). On the other hand, having your critical work depend on a network connection to some internet server is quite a huge risk (especially if you can't call up that internet server and demand instant human support for any little problem). And that's before you figure in the fact that Google's whole business model is personal information data mining. Even if Google is going to give their song and dance that they won't use it for evil, most companies aren't going to let a 3rd party store their documents, let alone run an automated program over every document they have mining out key information. As has been shown in the past "Google Hacking" is often used to get to information you weren't supposed to see. Can you imagine "Google Hacking" used for corporate espionage? A company wants to know if their competitor is looking into sprockets. So they take out an "ad" on Google specifically targeted at that keyword, but with completely different ad text. They then record IPs from incoming clicks to gauge if that ad was shown to people in the target company a lot, indicating that Google had mined that phrase from many of their documents and emails (gmail). And that's before you consider the fact that Google becomes a serious hacking target (even to hostile foreign governments), since a breach would affect tens of thousands of companies. With so many eggs in one basket it might be enough to warrent a physical breakin, stealing the data of thousands of companies, which are then sold to competitors or held for blackmail.
Yes, MS has some strong arming advantages in their tactics to protect themselves from Google, but they've already been limited by the government, people are becoming frustrated with MSFT's stock performance over the past five years, and CNBC has been pointing out threats like Linux and the world is taking it seriously.
So, in addition to software quality, Google's war will be helped greatly by their brand, imo.
Google isn't declaring "war" on Microsoft. That isn't their way. I know several people who work at Google, and they just don't talk about "killing" companies the way Microsoft employees do. It truly is a different work culture there. If someone does use "the K word" at an all-hands meeting or something, the bosses are quick to say that they don't want the employees to think about things that way.
Google can be a resoundingly successful company even if Microsoft is alive and well, and they're fine with that. The only thing Google needs from Microsoft is for them not to put up artificial barriers to accessing Google's services, such as modifying IE in ways that hamper Google. So I'm sure Google would love to see everyone using a non-MS browser such as Firefox.
I really think Google's strategy is (or should be) to lift the key services and applications from the OS up into well-made web services. Word processing is a huge one for most of us. I'm still anxiously hoping that a calendar and scheduler (Outlook-type program) comes along soon to integrate with Gmail. Once Google fills those needs, assuming they do it well, I'll really enjoy having consistent services that I can use from anywhere, on any platform.
Well, no.
From the press release: "the companies have agreed to explore opportunities to promote and enhance Sun technologies, like the Java Runtime Environment and the OpenOffice.org productivity suite".
Which is quite different from "will launch free spreadsheet and word-processing software online".
If all the world's a stage, anyone who says they want better lighting spends far too much time in a dark theatre.
I think you may be missing another part of the value equation. Previously, people had to buy:
1) A Java runtime ($0)
2) The Google Toolbar ($0)
3) OpenOffice.org. ($0)
This cost users a prohibitively high price (3 times $0!) Now, thanks to these revolutionary decisions by Sun and Google, you only have to pay $0 once. One enormous $0 download. What a deal! A third the price for all the functionality.
The partnership could mark a shift away from the traditional method of distributing software through the Microsoft Windows system and bring greater visibility to such Java-based programs as OpenOffice.org.
You'll find the above paragraph is CNN's speculation on the press release, not part of the press release itself.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
That doesn't mean Google will launch an online/web-enabled write/spreadsheet application. That could be something as miniscule as linking to OpenOffice.org from the GoogleToolbar to "download" the application. Google has not confirmed the development of a web-enabled word processor. Everyone has simply drawn that conclusion based upon speculation.
I want something official or nothing at all.
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
Microsoft didn't win by being the best, they "won" by being the cheapest that works.
Word wasn't "better" than WordPerfect (if you are running a transcription service or something similar, people have the FASTEST results with WP 5.1 than ANY modern system), and Excel wasn't "better" than Lotus 1-2-3. However, they were less than half the price and you could get the bundle for less than either program individually.
Sure, business travelers will have no interest in virtual open office... at least for the forseeable future, but home users MIGHT. My wife uses web mail (Gmail), because she can check it at the office AND at home. If she works on a personal document, she emails it to herself. A virtual (GOffice) would work for her.
Sure, those of us that work on laptops on flights would have no interest, but that doesn't matter.
If Google grabs the bottom 50% of the market, than Microsoft is in trouble... they can't sell companies on paying $100/machine to OEM office if the competition eats their lunch because home users use Goffice and business users get site licenses.
Remember why software often is winner-take-all. The costs are 99% R&D, and 1% Variable, therefore, the contribution margin on each sale is close to 99% of price. If Microsoft loses 10% of Office, that could reduce their "profits" by 20%, 30%, or more... If they need 30% of the market to cover their R&D costs, and they hold 70%, than a 10% loss in marketshare loses 25% of their profits...
Google just needs to eat them from the bottom, and Microsoft is in trouble.
Microsoft's business REQUIRES being "good enough" for 70%-90% of the markets that they play in. The smaller market remaining forces their competition higher and higher up the chain.
Apple's OS R&D isn't going to be THAT MUCH smaller than Microsoft's, which forces Apple's prices to be higher (compare Apple's margins on hardware to Microsoft's OEM deals... for fairness, backout the gross margin that other manufacturers make, probably 10%, and you see Apple's OS "premium" which is 8x-10x Microsoft's OEM price)...
MS SQL Server forced Oracle and DB2 out of the low end of the market, which keeps them in the premium spot despite better tech, because MS SQL is "good enough" and therefore a price drop doesn't grab marketshare for the better players.
This is why Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL and other Open Source solutions scare Microsoft... Microsoft can't sell a lot of web servers (compared to their marketshare in desktops or Office Suites), because LAMP is "good enough," which has REALLY hurt them... in that they thought they could leverage the Win95 monopoly into a server monopoly, which they never obtained.
Alex
When Microsoft signed the deal with Sun, they never realized that Google might want to use that against them. They can now use Sun software as a service via Google, and infringe on any of Microsoft's Office patents, without the threat of a lawsuit. OpenOffice does not have this ability. Microsoft WOULD sue Openoffice.org if it became very popular. Under the agreement, there is no limit to the way Sun could distribute the application/service.
Go Google!
Completely obvious, but it seems to me that the target market for office software would be the corporate world. The problem I see with Google's idea is that it runs on the web, no? I can tell you right now that the publicly traded company I work for would never switch to Google's online office software because of the security risk associated with us putting our closely held financials online with the potential of them getting stolen. Even if the software had never been broken, or if it ran on Java with no connection to the net once it were running, the folks that make the decisions around here would still perceive it to be a huge security risk and not give it the light of day. Just my $0.02.
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Sun and Google also said they would jointly promote Sun's Java Desktop operating system and its Open Office productivity software system, a free, open-source productivity software suite. The partnership could mark a shift away from the traditional method of distributing software through the Microsoft Windows system and bring greater visibility to such Java-based programs as OpenOffice.org.
They will promote a Java desktop program. Whoopee! More marketing, that's impressive.
It could mark a shift away from Microsoft. Whoopee! It COULD be something.
It does say Java-based programs, implying something running in the browser, but I wonder how many people will be happy waiting for some huge word processor applet to download to work on a document .
There sure isn't much substance there.
Infuriate left and right
That being said, I don't want to have to be internet-connected in order to work on a word processor document.
What about when internet access is as reliable as electricity?
Think about folks with electric stoves/ovens and microwaves. No gas cooking appliances. They don't seem to say, "That being said, I don't want to have to have electricity in order to cook a meal". People have bitten that bullet, and I'm sure they can count the amount of disruption they've experienced on one hand.
Yes, sometimes you have no internet access, but compare that to 10 years ago. Compare that to 20 years ago. It's come a long way, and in 10 years, service outages may be as commonplace as blackouts (i.e. pretty damn rare).
i for one want to be able to work on my document wherever i can get online, and leverage the sheer size of my Gmail account more flexibly. at university i never get the same box every time and they wipe them completely, word reinstalls to default settings every time i login. I connect to a central server for my files and thats the only degree of portability between machines. Not to mention being unable to get anything but http in the linux labs (they even borked SSH to their public linux Terminal server) they fear linux there. I want this portability badly. Sit down, open my personalised google, open my half finished report, resume working, save, close, logout. change rooms, repeat progress. all without stuffing round with my acurrsed central login, so i can use ANY machine to work on with any login, as long as ive got net access i can happily get to my work and work with my settings :)
XML - A clever joke would be here if
Amongst the many little nuggets of wisdom ive learned, such as "Duct tape is only as strong as the material you attach it too", "Giving linux for free to people happy to pay you to make it work is profitable" and "eventualy everything will wind up in some torrent". There is one thats appropriate at the moment.
"Sometimes a dirty hack Is the best soloution"
XML - A clever joke would be here if
Occurs to me that Google has no choice but to try to become Microsoft's death.
Microsoft had already long decided to kill Google. They've a Google-killer search engine, a maps adjunct, all that. They want Google dead, and being a monopoly, they can use dominance in their OS and Office products to spend any competitor to death.
But, Google decided to try to kill it's preordained assassin.
Google was on top in search engine software; Office-like software was free, for crissakes. Why not simply blend the two together? What would it hurt? Maybe Microsoft, if the world's annoyance with closed specs on its office documents achieves critical mass.
Google may become top dog, but only because the alternative was to be a dead dog.