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MS Planning Free Web-Based Business Software
nieske writes "In response to Google Apps for Your Domain, Microsoft is also planning to release free web-based business software. The software will be ad-supported, but a paid, ad-free version will also be available.
From the article: 'Revenue from software licenses for Office and the Windows operating system accounts for a bulk of Microsoft revenues. The challenge for Microsoft will be to make sure a free or, possibly, a subscription-supported version of Works won't hurt sales of its dominant Office software, which accounted for a quarter of the company's $44 billion in sales last year.' Would you choose an ad-supported online version of Microsoft Office over other free options like OpenOffice or Google Apps for Your Domain?"
Maybe they'll decide to work on this. Maybe they'll decide the market is too crowded already. Right now, it's all up in the air -- I have found no sources claiming they are already planning it.
My work here is dung.
The best office suite will be competing with other free options. Competition is always good, even in the "freeware" market. So Open Office, Google, etc MUST now get good or die. It's life and slashdot like competion, doesn't we?
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
I'm glad this article came out... It provided me a link to google so I could experiment with their apps on my domain. I've been meaning to do it, but I never got around to it...
I wonder how many other people that didn't know about google's services, or just haven't gotten around to signing up WILL sign up because this M$ article reminded them to do so.
Funnypics
Knowing Microsoft, it will have features like:
a) it only works with Internet Explorer
b) documents saved with it will never load on anything but Microsoft products
c) shortcuts to it will be placed in highly visible locations in all future versions of Windows
d) it can only be accessed from PC's running licensed copies of Windows
etc. etc. etc.
I'll stick with Google.
Understanding is a three edged sword. - Ambassador Kosh Naranek, Babylon 5
I need excel and there is no two ways about it. Until other spreadsheet systems can absorb all the work my company (a large investment bank) has done and continues to do in excel, we won't even consider using anything else. I imagine MANY slashdotters are in the same boat.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
but not at work really. I think the idea of online applications is still to new for companies to embrace. Many companies go ages between upgrades and changes because they like to stick with what works. While down the road, it may become more viable, (2 years+) - for the time being I see companies sticking to install disks instead of login URL's.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
Hmmmm, in a word, nope.
For the sake of Peace, the Sword.
Businesses will buy the locally stored software. Individuals will use the free stuff online that comes from companies they know and trust online like Google. There's no room for Microsoft to go ad-based. It just won't work.
Aside from the usual catchphrase associated with articles like that, the question runs deeper: Will the documents created that way be adhere to an open standard? Or do we get MS-specific formats for a vendor lock-in again? Will I be able to read those documents with a tool of my choice, or will we be facing the usual "guess the format" game 'til someone comes up with an OS solution?
If he still may, patents and all considered.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Would you choose an ad-supported online version of Microsoft Office over other free options like OpenOffice or Google Apps for Your Domain?
Of course we wouldn't. But then again, this is slashdot you're trying to troll.
Lost laptop computers won't be news worthy. What a boring world it will be.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
The question is what are the functions that will be offered? Will you be able to make big posters in the document program or make a chart a different sheet in the worksheet? Another question is how obtrusive will the ads be? Security is also a concern. If you can just logon to the internet and use a p/l to access the data, it's even easier to leak information by just giving out the information. I think I'll stick to in house operations where I can limit folders to certaion people only and such.
That which does not kill me only postpones the inevitable.
[Bill G] Muhahahahahahahahahhaha...
[Steve B] Oh look, this guy is working on a patent for a new chair.
[Bill G] Muhahahahahahahahahhaha...
[Steve B] Yes Bill, now we'll have all their secrets, stop that.
[Bill G] Muhahahahahahahahahhaha...
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
OK, I read TFA, and there's nothing here worth seeing.
What's missing is the key ingredient: either give me the details of what they're actually planning to do, or tell me the value proposition of what they are mulling over. This article gives you neither. The crux of this story is that Microsoft is thinking of releasing Works as a free or subscription model. The idea of paying regularly for a web-based version of Microsoft's crippled Office stepchild, which many PC companies give away with $299 desktops, is amusing to say the least.
Now maybe Microsoft can come up with some added value that would make it worthwhile to go this route. If so, I'd sure want to read about it. But in the absence of information like that, there's nothing in this article worth your time.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
MS does this when competitors announce new products they hadn't thought of themselves. They suggest they're going to move into the market and essentially wipe out the competition. It's to keep the microsoft shops waiting for their product. It seems to take them about 3 years to come up with something worthwhile, if they ever do.
Deleted
Google apps for your domain and M$ Office (if offered online) are different types of products.
Would you choose an ad-supported online version of Microsoft Office over other free options like OpenOffice or Google Apps for Your Domain?
They're not even considering this!
They're considering a version of Works, which, as anyone who has used it knows, is a middle-school level of Office, at best.
If they actually do this, they'll look like hopeless noobs to anyone who compares their offering to Google's.
Will it be spyware/virus free? Or is that an optional feature you need to pay for?
A coworker of mine is in the closed beta program for the online office applications. He says it is pretty slick. So, I would say they really are planning, instead of just 'mulling'.
Well,
;-)
Google strategy probably is use the feedback from their public betas, and free services, to devellop an WebAppliance that can be easly deployed at a business network, such as their nice Search appliance.
I can see they releasing a document management system integrated with Google desktop, corporate Gmail,Search and their online office suite. Kind of a wiki were you can post webpages, documents an sheets that can be collaboratively edited online... everything nicely packaged on a 1U blue box
Also, somewhere, someone is already thinking about an OpenOffice plugin, or KDE KioSlave, or Gnome GFSplugin, that will make it possible edit these online documents directly from Write/Calc, KWrite/KSpread and Abiword/Gnumeric... And this will be the killer feature that will make MSOffice obsolete.
Mark my words... Microsoft couldn't take Google out of the search business, but Google has a good chance of taking the corporate office business crown from Microsoft.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
Of course this won't affect MS business software license revenue. Without PowerPoint, the macro support, and or even full document interoperability with real MS Office documents, the desktop version Microsoft Works isn't even a replacement for Office, let alone a web-based version of Works.
If they offer a version with all the recent features stripped out, there will be an unintended consequence. It will finally prove conclusively whether users cared about anything that was added after Word for Windows 2.0.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
> Would you choose an ad-supported online version of Microsoft Office over other free options like OpenOffice or Google Apps for Your Domain?"
Hell ya...Definitely I will choose ad-supported online version of Microsoft Office over OpenOffice considering the pathetic quality of OpenOffice. When it comes to comparision agaisnt Google apps, then I am not yet sure.
If I were a corporate leadership, the last thing I would want is to have my employees distracted by ads. I'd pay the tiny fee for the *actual* product. Very small compared to salaries, even if you're underpaying. A distracted worker is a bad worker (why do we send them to so many meetings?!)
30 second Flash commercials in any cell with a formula...
At least it will answer the longstanding question:
K23: =Revenue
K24: VISIT CLASSMATES.COM !
K25: =Profit!
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Would you choose an ad-supported online version of Microsoft Office over other free options like OpenOffice or Google Apps for Your Domain?
Assuming the files were identical to Office files, this would be a nice option. I could work "online" on the documents, and then if I was traveling or otherwise disconnected from the net, I could pull the files down and work on them on my laptop, then push them back up when I regained connectivity. Of course the files would have to be *identically* formatted. If I had to go through some translation there is really no benefit versus using something else like Google's offerings in conjunction with my local Office install.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
Yes, there are many many large institutions that can't do without Excel, because there simply isn't another product that can do what it does. I've been struck how over the many large sites I've visited, the one invariant is Excel -- can't do finance without it.
...which I think says something about the difficulty of communicating requirements across different mindsets. Also, I guess it's easy to forget what a complicated and powerful environment Excel is; even understanding what people _need_ to do in it (over what OO.o does) is hard, I guess.
However, I think you'll find that on slashdot the replies will divide into:
1 -- Check out OO.o. It does what Excel does.
2 -- LOLz0rZ u use Ex-Hell!!!1! U shld get a real db like MySQL!!1!!
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Given that, I believe that you'll likely still have to buy MS Office if you want to open a .doc made in Word, and vice-versa.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Technology moves fast in our business and there are numerous stories over the years of companies that tried to "manage" transitions that are now gone (Wang). The market moves at its own pace and if you are worried about what making a move will do to your business, you are looking at the wrong thing, because if you can do it to your business so can someone else. There is ONLY one option in these business and it is simple "If you don't cannibalize your own business, someone else will do it for you".
I've been trying out 'google mail for your domain', and I quite like it. However, what I would really like is the option to pay for it as that would at least give me some leverage if something was to go wrong.
Hopefully I just need to wait for it to come out of beta.
I'm sure I remember breathless articles in PC Weak and the like in the late 90s (around the time of the release of IE4) that they were going to be porting Office and a load of other stuff to fully ActiveX-based web-hosted services. This crops up every few years at Microsoft - cf the current, soon to be abortive, attempt with ".live", or whatever it's called. No-one will use it, and it will be quietly canned after a few years.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
If it is web based it can be made to run on any operating system, not only windows Will MS bother to do that? Probably not.
All the world is upset about the fact that the Bush administration, CIA, NSA etc. are spying on people in the US and all around the world. Why the hell should a business trust Google by storing its data on their server?
Some things just shouldn't be run across a network. File storage? Fine (local network). Email? Fine. The apps themselves, over the Internet, even? No way. I don't have that level of trust in the network, it's just not as reliable as the software on my local disk (especially when factors like, say... Comcast* are involved). I wouldn't even use OpenOfficeOnline if there were such a thing.
To sum up, quoting the Verizon guy: "It's the network."
* Comcastic == teh suck.
Do you want help with that?
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This could merely be an effort to take attention away from the alternatives
Even bad publicity is good publicity. If they want to divert attention away from alternatives they need to produce something or shut up. Just speaking about Google being a competitor temps more people to check out what Google has to offer.
Microsoft knows this. So I doubt it's just a diversion.
Developers: We can use your help.
...your firm will throw hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of dollars at MS but not contribute one dollar or one hour programmer time to any of the open source versions of this or that useful app like office software, browsers, spreadsheets, database managers, etc, with some feature requests?
Man, that's some serious long term stratergerizing there! I'm just so impressed with current businesses and their incredible bran power with long term thinking! I guess that's why we have such wonderful balance of trade figures, our banking investment overlords just really know their stuff, and it shows! Why, due to their astute economic analysis and how they leverage their brain power to help the people and their stockholders, we now have the largest surplusses in history, we have the most sound dollar trading at record high levels, we have 0% unemployment with great jobs all having full benefits, our pension plans are good to go for the next 100 years, and stuff like that!
Oh, wait, it's the opposite of all that. Worst balance of trade figures ever, worst savings, most screwed up pensions across the board, numbers of people with jobs that have any benefits at all dropping every time they get some new stats, tourism dropping because people are actually both scared and just annoyed with even coming to the US because it's just getting so stupid it's embarassing, grumblings all over the planet to drop the dollar and switch to anything but, record bankruptcies, record high levels of people staring at losing their homes because they got faked out by "investment advisors" into taking out more loans that they could afford that were never even close to being rational, more businesses just closing shop or moving offshore in last ditch desperation moves, highest level of upper management salaries as opposed to rank and file workers salaries ever, worst stock profit to earnings ratios, and etc, huge long list, etc.
Thank you for your vast knowledge and business acumen and amazingly accurate decisions, right from the playbook of the great "decider" himself, that fountain of all knowledge, keep doing *exactly* what you are doing, it has been so very effective, good for the nation!
When your average person is buying a new PC, there's an "obligation" to pay the basic MS tax for Windows. Unless you're talking about the extremely price-conscious, a lot of these folks see the extra $100 for bundled Office as just another routine cost of buying a PC, since they "can't do homework/write a letter/view the spreadsheet from their CPA" without it.
I know my dad, who is not an extremely savvy computer buyer, always pays for bundled Office, even if he still has the CDs for an older version. Basically, he's conditioned to think that Office is what you need to do documents/spreadsheets and there's no convincing him otherwise. And with technology, of course, the newer version is always "better." On top of that, he'd be reluctant to switch to OpenOffice or another free/cheap suite now, because he "knows" Office.
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it's easy to forget what a complicated and powerful environment Excel is; even understanding what people _need_ to do in it (over what OO.o does) is hard, I guess.
As someone who's used Lotus, Excel 4 and up, Quatropro, OO, Kspread and Gnumeric, you would have a hard time explaining exactly what Excel has to offer that other software does not. A spreadsheet is something you make for simple, repetitive calculations and quick graphs. When you need to perform "complicated" analysis, you are always better off using a specialized, external tool. About the only advantage Excel has is in importing files made with tools that have been added in the wrong way, like Visio drawings. That advantage is one that does not survive many upgrade cycles, so you are better off using the less expensive and better designed alternatives. Mostly, the things "needed" by Excel users are an abuse of the spreadsheet concept that lead to errors and heartache.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Long Answer:
-----------------
Why in the world would someone use something from Microsoft over the web when even their compiled, local versions have a horrible reputation?
I think that the main reason people pay of MS products now is that there is SOME support for it. I'm sure the web version will be "here's the help file; now, go away".
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
So I can either believe Reuters (who says that MS is merely considering this) or someone claiming to be Grant Thompson. Wonder who I'll go with?
Maybe not with 2k7, but you can bet on the fact that they have plans for this sort of thing. In the current situation there are TONS of pirated office products lying around. With the subscription/web model you can't really steal it as easily. Worst case scenario you can share accounts among people, but all you have to do is kill one session if that user re-logs in. Having an ad-based version will bring in a fair bit of revenue from people who would have normally 'borrowed' a copy from work anyways. I bet they could drop the price by 1/3, give away a free ad based version and still increase revenue. Plus, EVERY business is looking to increase their RMR (recurring monthly income for the non-economists). Look for something from them before the end of the decade.
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Egroupware, webdav pretty much do what you suggest. A 500 quid turnkey box would be ideal for small businesses, add a web accounts package and you've got everything a small business needs to run.
You can set up a system like that in a couple of days.
Deleted
Someone patent "animated paperclip in a popup web window" and make yourself a bundle of money.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
on offering a service similar to Salesforce.com? I heard this rumor a good six months ago, but nothing since. Could be it's still in development, but I would have expected MS to trot this one out every quarter or so, just to keep Google (and Oracle) nervous....
Just junk food for thought...
Always?
What if the end user can produce what (s)he needs using excel to scrape some data off the web, integrate it with private data, crunch some numbers, finally put his/her results into the appropriate corporate database under their name.
Sometimes the code they produce is amazingly bad, that's an HR issue. Sometimes you find real financial engineering going on, VBA references to linear problem DLLs etc etc etc (for reference if you are currently IT/progamming and are REAL good at math you can get a BIG bump in salary by studying 'financial engineering').
The alternative? You do it in your favorite programming environment in time you had set aside for scratching your ass. Did'nt have ass scratching time reserved? You've got a problem, the Comptroller/CFO/SrAccountant does'nt. (s)hes got an excel sheet that works right now.
Granted the excel sheet is a network admin problem and must be backed up. The user is a potential staffing issue and should cross train someone on the job. Those are just normal business issues.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Didn't Microsoft announce the Office Live initiative long ago? The Slashdot summary makes it sound like Microsoft is following Google, when it's the opposite in this case.
> Would you choose an ad-supported online version of Microsoft Office over other free options like OpenOffice or Google Apps for Your Domain?"
No. Thanks for asking. Unless someone can explain to me why OpenOffice doesn't cut it.
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The user would be better off learning perl or having an IT guy just make them a perl plugin for gnumeric. Perl is one of several languages gnumeric can use to manipulate data. A M$ specific language is something to avoid.
Did'nt have ass scratching time reserved? You've got a problem,
I do have that kind of time. If you don't, it might have something to do with your choice of software. Access working for you these days? How's the VB to C# migration going? Virses and worms making things hard to manage? Are you ready for Vista? Nope, not my problem.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Sorry, my older fingers are not working so well in the cold wet rain today. And I don't care about typos that much with some random AC post I might do.. But bran power is rather funny even though it wasn't planned that way!
people are predictable, and I know so many people who would chose an online ad-supported spyware-infested MS Office over OpenOffice, Writely, or anything else... just bc they used it before...
In the same sentence? This is, needless to say, a trap.
EOM
For me, the bottom line is simple: I just can't trust MS or Google with my business data.
I need open-source apps that I can host on my own intranet+VPN.
Plus, convenient packaging would be a big plus for small businesses like mine. For example, it would be great to have a VMWare virtual machine with the OS and apps all pre-hardened and ready to configure and run.
I haven't seen anyone else in this discussion mentioning what is to me the most obvious problem with a web-based office suite, namely that only about 15-16% of people in the first world have broadband (extrapolated from OECD stats). I mean, duh? Who on dial-up is going to opt for web-based over locally installed software?
Why would I want to use free open source software, when I can do my work over the internet and share it with at least one third party?
He who said 1,000,000 monkeys on 1,000,000 typewriters would eventually type the great novel, never saw an AOL chat room
The title states: "MS Planning Free Web-Based Business Software". This is clearly incorrect! The correct title should read: "MS Planning Fee Web-Based Business Software". Thank you for your time and attention. I hate to pick nits, but this one was just wrong wrong wrong!
Microsoft won the desktop, aggressively took substantial server market share and will sweep the services platform space now. The amount of brain power and investment Microsoft is putting in this area is unbelievable. Like it or not, 10 years from now, you may be talking about Google like you talk about WordPerfect and Lotus these days.
MS spent $20 million in TEMPEST research. That's technology to scan your computer monitor from outside on the street, in layman's terms. MS monopoly tactics pale in comparison to the research money they put into curbing our civil liberties. Their DRM warfare against digital rights, all by itself, eclipses the worst Google could ever do.
As long as MS and Google are active forces against each other, it's all good in my mind.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I don't think there is anything interesting here, unless if M$ plan to use TSE (terminal service).
:-). No one else can do it beside M$, because of the high cost and licencing nightmare of TSE solution.
Just think about it, using remote desktop, they can offer great user experience just using their current technology. There's about nothing to change (except improving the security of windows 2003 server of course
Since they choose which application to run on this platform, they could strip off all the bullshit code that make it compatible with old application, and this improve security enough to use TSE on the world wild web.
Google should go for linux + OpenOffice + NX (or Abiwork + NX for less demanding users), that would be the real killer app, and not a toy work-processor (think writely).