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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.
I've read through all the linked articles, and the articles *they* link to, and while the claims of "Google confirms it!" are plentiful, I haven't seen a single named source or attribution for this story.The Forbes story, in fact, still calls any Google online office venture 'speculation'. Where is this 'declaration of war'?
If all the world's a stage, anyone who says they want better lighting spends far too much time in a dark theatre.
Excuse me. StarOffice is Sun's. OpenOffice is ours.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Where do I enlist...
(This is one war I think protesters will be null)
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
All the power to them if they suck some marketshare from Office. But there is one thing about the direction that all this is taking that bothers me.
TFA says it's not the value of the software but rather the service and content that matters. I'd tend to agree with that statement. But a little part of me can't help but dislike and be paranoid about all these web services. Do you really want the future of web processing to be entirely web based and saved on somebody else's machine? G-mail bothers me like that -- even though I pretty much use it exclusively for e-mail now.
I'm not a big fan of making all the desktops in the World into dumb terminals -- even if that means some measure of freedom from Microsoft.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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
Having your documents online is more conveniant and more secure. You wouldn't have to pass them around to all the different PC's you use. It is more secure because most at home users computers are riddled with virus's and spyware. A good online office solution is why Google's stock price is so high. They may or may not get there but if anyone has the tools and business culture to do it would be Google. To accomplish a good online Office Suite one would have to play well with others in the standards department and be willing to give some control away. Neither of which Microsoft is capable of doing.
Install OpenOffice?
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 . . .
Don't worry, it'll all work offline. However, the toolbar download is over 500MB.
qntm.org
Well, most big companies don't sign partnership agreements for the purposes of just looking cool. Google doesn't run Solaris (they use Linux), nor do they use Sun servers (they use cheap white boxes). So, why else would they "partner" with Sun? Google isn't going to swap our the OS on 1000's of servers even if Solaris was FREE, nor are they going to switch hardware. SO...what else does Sun have to offer, StarOffice which competes with MS-Office. It's been pretty obvious Google is targeting MS, since they hired away the guy (Dr. Lee) who was helping MS develop thier strategy for the worlds biggest market (China) until he fell into disfavor with Bill and/or Steve.
But really using apps over the network is NOT I repeat NOT new. When I started in software in the early 1980s all we had were cheap green-screen Televideo 9600 buad terminals hardwired to a mainframe (or VAX in some cases) server. All the applications ran on the server. This is just an "upgrade" to 1980s technology, with a nicer user interface. I'm not impressed with the idea, but I am glad someone is after MS. INMHO, competition is good and produces better products for less.
And how is MS Office going to help you when you have no electricity?
Get a reliable network connection, just as you would do for your other utilities.
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;
Sun ported at least the interface portion of StarOffice to Java a while back (they called it Star Portal or something). They could easily bundle the Sun JVM with the Google Toolbar (something they said earlier they would do) then have some kind of Java Web Start thing to download a Java front-end to Star Office which possibly does some processing on the server (although I can't really imagine what, unless Sun wanted to re-invent NeWS with a Java front-end replacing the PostScript portion).
[1] That means made up.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It seems to me that Google's future business plans all entail the idea that within 5-10 years, all computers will be online almost all the time. I mean, I can get online at my college campus everywhere except my bathroom. That's the only place that doesn't have an Ethernet port in the wall or wireless access. And if we can do it at most college campuses, and knowing that we've got commerically viable wireless at distances of several miles (article yesterday), we will probably have wireless or high-speed everywhere in the US, or at least covering the majority of the population.
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.
What are the details?
What's it going to be
1) Google directs you to the staroffice website for you to download &
install it locally on your machine & google provides a place for you to
store your documents
OR
2) Google & Sun rebuild StarOffice as a Webservice & then allow you
to edit your document through a webapp & also proves a place for
you to store your documents
Model 1 -> In my opinion, doesn't provide anything new. You
can do it now. Still doesn't solve the problem of people being
locked to Microsoft's format.
Model 2 -> May be good - may solve the problem of people being bound to
the Microsoft document format (i.e. the format isn't important if you have
a service, which is always accessible to everyone to open/edit/print it,
but there is one problem.
50% of the time, documents are edited offline. It's going to be some
years, before people are online all the time. Even when that happens,
what happens if your service goes down & you need to edit the document
coz you have a presentation in 15 minutes.
Plus can a webbased service really provide all the functionality & speed of
a native application?
Does anyone know of any previous cases where companies have taken fairly successful desktop applications and made them accessible on the web?
Sure. Hotmail.
I guess this mean's Microsoft will now buy Google, and then proceed to completely fuck it up.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
It's about time. I wanna see those Google tanks take on the Microsoft cyborgs with all the cluster bombing and the killing and Redmond getting nuked and I wouldn't wanna fuck around with Steve Ballmer, I can just imagine him in a torn shirt and a bandana armed with a minigun and stabbing the wounded with his bayonet and Bill Gates wired into some massive battle computer and Steve Jobs just biding his time waiting for them to destroy each other so he can piss on the ashes.......... Man, this is some good coffee!!!
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.
-Sun will promote Google Toolbar
-Google will promote Java runtime and stuff
Nowhere does it say that there will be a in-browser version on OpenOffice. It's speculation. If you disagree, link me a press release and quote it.
-everphilski-
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
There was a time when contact management (or, in a more sophisticated form, CRM - customer relationship management) was a desktop app like Act or similar products. Enter SalesForce.com. You could say the same thing about what used to be the province of QuickBooks Pro, or lighter-weight implementations of accounting apps like Solomon or Great Plains, and look instead at NetLedger.com. These are complete migrations from desktop business apps to subscription-based web apps. Likewise with newer versions of tax prep software, etc. This is not new.
That being said, I don't want to have to be internet-connected in order to work on a word processor document.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
File -> new document -> templates -> report -> I'm feeling Lucky!
Inquirer's article is so grossly irresponsible, and the summary so inaccurate, that I think this should just be removed
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Thinkfree office has exactly the same service (a MS compatible office program available online, with document saving on their server for free)..
http://www.thinkfree.org/
But I imagine Google/Sun will get more publicity.
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!
probably more like:
Invent and write story in blog that the company everybody loves is going to destroy the company everybody loves to hate. People believe it because they want to.
Buy stock in the company everybody loves to hate at a discount.
Wait 3 days for everybody to realize its just lies.
Sell stock for big profit.
News Flash, SEC starts to investigate bloggers.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
Rich content WEB services such as GOOGLE EARTH, Have never been
possible due to lack of bandwith.
If I wanted to runn a web based app like those darn java applets
that couldn't compete with apps running local.
Now, With Broadband in place(4 Mbps or more), You can access a Full fledged app
from the web and and rival in performance with your locally install MS Crap.
Microsoft bussiness model:
Control the distribution channel (CD's/preinstalled)
Pay for programs, not conent.
Google bussiness model:
Control the distribution channel (WEB-HOSTS-SERVICES/WI-FI)
Pay for conent, not programs.
The clock is ticking
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
We all know what happenned to the big bad IBM of yesterday...
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.
Instead of quibbling over nuances, consider this: Is it technically feasible to do this? Would there be any benefit? You betcha. Roger Kay's dinosaur quote below is great. It's funny, whenever you see one of those Microsoft adverts with the dinosaurs, it makes me think what a great OpenOffice add it would be, with Microsoft's Bob being one of the dinos.