Challenging Microsoft on the Desktop

Dotnaught writes "As Microsoft moves to offer software-as-a-service with Windows Live, online companies are moving to challenge Microsoft on the desktop. In a decision that would have been seen as foolish a few years ago, file sharing and social networking company TransMedia plans to release desktop productivity apps (in conjunction with online ones) as lightweight Microsoft Office alternatives. Google, meanwhile, through its deal with Intuit, is colonizing desktop apps as it has done with browsers and search toolbars. Microsoft used to have a home field advantage on the desktop, thanks to Windows. Lately, operating system ownership is looking a lot less valuable."

Comments

Re:It has been MS office more than Windows for yea

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Yes there was time more people knew WordStar commands than the entire population of Pakistan, but when WordPerfect out did WordStar, it did it with a better product. When Lotus outdid Visicalc it did it with a better product.

When Word out did WordPerfect, it was through bundling it with OS, getting steep discounts on the price of OS to the OEM installers if they DONT install or sell WordPerfectb by throttling the revenue stream of WordPerfect by leveraging MSFT's monopoly in the OS space. That is how it won. And what happens after it wins? Just look at IE after it won the war with Netscape. Just look at the price increase in MsOffice while the hardware prices dropped by orders of magnitude. Starting from a pale imitation of a competing software is not the bad part. It is killing a superior product with underhand tactics that hurts us users. All of us.