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

Online apps

[insomniac8400]

There is not a chance in hell I would use an online app for something that runs fine on my local pc. Why add an unneeded security risk?

Re:Online apps

[Anonymous Coward]

Because every now and then vendors decide it's time to try and make desktop systems into dumb clients again and they need another kick in the ass to remind them of why it's a stupid idea.

Fear not. This too shall pass. Just like it did the last three times somebody tried it.

Actually, to be fair, online applications do make sense in a controlled environment such as a workplace where you can deliver a basic windows system and apps on-demand from any platform of your choosing (read: Citrix) to a group of people who don't need any control over their systems (the typical office worker). It's just that sometimes vendors get it into their heads that EVERYTHING should be like that and they try to push it, fail, and get fired, leaving the next batch of marketroids and accountants to come in, eventually develop this "novel" idea, and repeat the entire process again.

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

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

My assertion is that a corporate IT department could substitute any operating system and users would barely notice as long as they could continue to use Outlook, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Visio, and Access.

Many vendors could easily out-do MSFT in application space. MSFT did not get its marketshare and lead by simple technical superiority of its product or coding skills. It got it by better business tactics. Infact every flag ship product that is minting money for MSFT started out as a pale copy of some other better program. WordPerfect, QuattroPro/Lotus, Harvard Presentation Graphics, Dbase/Foxbase etc. Then the marketing muscle, clever tricks to prevent interoperability, agreements with vendors to throttle competition and naivity of its user base that confused interoperability with PC-compatibility got MSFT the market share and lead. If the OS advantage is removed and the playing field is leveled by demanding true interoperability and compatibility to standards, (standards not wholly owned and manipulated by MSFT) you will see what other vendors are truly capable of.

The key is Open STANDARDS. Do not confuse it with Linux/Mac/Unix or Open Source or Free Software or Gnu or GPL. If the users demand true portability of their data and their applications the playing field will be leveled. My docment, my macros, my scripts are mine. I want them to work whether I choose to run MSOffice or OpenOffice. Only when owners of the data assert their ownership and refuse to be locked into a particular vendor's format the playing field will be level.

Why I'm sticking with my MS Office (97)...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Why I'm sticking with MS Office (97):
    - It still works with people using Office 2003
    - It doesn't take a registration key
    - The CD is quite easy to copy for friends and family
    - The built-in VB stuff is completely (safely) broken when you just run it off a file share
    - It never phones home (and there's no Internet component)
    - It installs in under 100MB
    - If any new features have been introduced since 1997, I don't need them
    - It doesn't try to figure out my advertising profile from the documents I work with