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Google Challenging Microsoft For Business Software
SternisheFan tips a report at the NY Times about the progress Google is making in its quest to unseat Microsoft's position atop the business software industry. From the article:
It has taken years, but Google seems to be cutting into Microsoft's stronghold — businesses. ... In the last year Google has scored an impressive string of wins, including at the Swiss drug maker Hoffmann-La Roche, where over 80,000 employees use the package, and at the Interior Department, where 90,000 use it. One big reason is price. Google charges $50 a year for each person using its product, a price that has not changed since it made its commercial debut, even though Google has added features. In 2012, for example, Google added the ability to work on a computer not connected to the Internet, as well as security and data management that comply with more stringent European standards. That made it much easier to sell the product to multinationals and companies in Europe. ... Microsoft says it does not yet see a threat. Google 'has not yet shown they are truly serious,' said Julia White, a general manager in Microsoft’s business division. 'From the outside, they are an advertising company.'"
Microsoft says it does not yet see a threat.
Isn't this what happened to Microsoft in the mobile/phone/tablet space? Now they are playing catch-up to both Google and Apple. Complacency is a dangerous copilot.
Most of the new clients Microsoft has had recently came to it because of SharePoint. Google Apps collaboration features basically kill SharePoint. Yes it also kills Outlook and Exchange.
Actually ironically Google is simply doing what MSFT did in the past, which was taking a market from morons. How did MS Office become dominant? Because Wordperfect was run by morons who thought that even though Windows was the dominant platform they could just sit on ass and repackage their DOS version and made a buggy POS that bombed. Same thing happened with IE and Netscape, Netscape put out the disaster that was NS 4 and gave MSFT a market by default, same again with Windows VS BeOS, which chose first a lame AT&T CPU that bombed, then the Motorola chip that was already fading before finally getting the sense too late to make an X86 version.
Now MSFT is being run by an absolute moron named Steve "What is Apple doing?" Ballmer who is about to make a move that will make the Osbourne effect or HP buying Palm look like minor boo boos. For those that don't know what I'm talking about look up "Windows Blue" where Ballmer laid out his "game plan" for MSFT past Win 8. in it he says Windows will get YEARLY releases (just like Apple) Microsoft will take over the production of hardware (just like Apple) stop selling to the low end (see a pattern here?) and tie every single thing to an appstore (Can Apple sue for plagiarism?) while making their own phones (ditto) laptops (uh huh) and desktops (Ray Charles could see through this plan) at high markups like they are doing with the surface, which they had to slash orders for in half because nobody is gonna pay $800 for a Windows device that won't run Windows programs.
So if the board doesn't stop smoking weed and wake the fuck up but quick I predict in 5 years we are gonna see the low end and a HELL of a lot of the businesses move to Google, after all Android has tons of apps and Google has already said they are gonna combine ChromeOS and Android so it really wouldn't be hard for Google to simply bake in something like Crossover to support some legacy Windows programs, Apple will keep the high end, although frankly i think their stock is gonna take a serious tumble when everyone sees that Cook can't pull new markets out of his ass like Jobs did, and MSFT will be relegated to legacy installs and a bunch of MSFT stores that will look like ghost towns.
In the end it won't be because Google made this truly amazing thing, although I give them credit in that they are putting in the work, nope its because Steve Ballmer drank too much eggnog and got it in his head you can take a Pinto, slap a coat of paint on it along with a $100,000 price tag, and it will magically compete with a Porsche. MSFT is a Walmart brand but because Ballmer cares more about what Wall Street thinks than in making good products he is just gonna copy every damned thing Apple is doing and think that people will buy windows...why? Because they like the WinFlag? He butchered the UI, his appstore is a joke, and just ask Intel about how well those crazy high Ultrabooks sold, they got warehouses full of the things.
At the end of the day Windows 8 just doesn't work, the new office will probably end up all metro and ribbon and it won't work, so frankly all Google has to do is make something that works and that lets you do things easily and they can take the Walmart shoppers and the small businesses simply by virtue of MSFT thinking they can take Apple's customers, how retarded. want a perfect example of Ballmer thinking? He said when he canceled Windows Home Server "Oh we have all those features in windows SBS now so we aren't leaving the market as people will just switch to SBS". Hmmm...Windows Home Server..$40, Windows SBS? $400!!! But that is Ballmer in a nutshell, he thinks he can take a brand that has sold at Walmart prices for damned near 30 years and just jack the living fuck out of the price and people will go "Ohh Windows is a hip brand now so we'll pay!" yeah the reason that Google is gaining is because Ballmer and his marketing drones go over about as well as a shit brown Zune.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Here's a quick paste from the article:
Google Apps Challenging Microsoft in Business By QUENTIN HARDY Published: December 25, 2012 Facebook Twitter Google+ Save E-mail Share Print Reprints SAN FRANCISCO — It has taken years, but Google seems to be cutting into Microsoft’s stronghold — businesses.
Virginie Drujon-Kippelen for The New York Times
Jim Nielsen, center, of Shaw Industries calculated that using Google instead of similar Microsoft products would cost, over seven years, about one-thirteenth Microsoft’s price.
Google’s software for businesses, Google Apps, consists of applications for document writing, collaboration, and text and video communications — all cloud-based, so that none of the software is on an office worker’s computer. Google has been promoting the idea for more than six years, and it seemed that it was going to appeal mostly to small businesses and tech start-ups.
But the notion is catching on with larger enterprises. In the last year Google has scored an impressive string of wins, including at the Swiss drug maker Hoffmann-La Roche, where over 80,000 employees use the package, and at the Interior Department, where 90,000 use it.
One big reason is price. Google charges $50 a year for each person using its product, a price that has not changed since it made its commercial debut, even though Google has added features. In 2012, for example, Google added the ability to work on a computer not connected to the Internet, as well as security and data management that comply with more stringent European standards. That made it much easier to sell the product to multinationals and companies in Europe.
Many companies that sell software over the cloud add features without raising prices, but also break from traditional industry practice by rarely offering discounts from the list price.
Microsoft’s Office suite of software, which does not include e-mail, is installed on a desktop PC or laptop. In 2013, the list price for businesses will be $400 per computer, but many companies pay half that after negotiating a volume deal.
At the same time, Microsoft has built its business on raising prices for extra features and services. The 2013 version of Office, for example, costs up to $50 more than its predecessor.
“Google is getting traction” on Microsoft, said Melissa Webster, an analyst with IDC. “Its ‘good enough’ product has become pretty good. It looks like 2013 is going to be the year for content and collaboration in the cloud.”
"We are not planning on doing anything until it is too late." said Julia White, a general manager in Microsoft’s business division.
That's not Outlook, that's an Exchange setting. If you were using Outlook as your gmail client you wouldn't get that either.
How did MS Office become dominant? Because Wordperfect was run by morons who thought that even though Windows was the dominant platform they could just sit on ass and repackage their DOS version and made a buggy POS that bombed.
That is not at all what happened. First off Microsoft Word for DOS at the time of the Windows switch was already a rather good product and quite popular. While it was clearly in 2nd / 3rd place it wasn't coming out of nowhere.
WordPerfect was heavily focused on cross platform and many non DOS versions. They were working on a Windows versions and came out within about a year of Windows 3.0's release. DOS was still the dominant platform when WordPerfect for Windows came out. It wasn't all that much more buggy than any of the word Processors were. Word was a bit faster, and better integrated the all around best experience but AmiPro, WordPerfect... were better and frankly DeScribe was likely the most feature rich least buggy word processor of the time.
Where Microsoft won was price pure and simple. $129 "competitive upgrades" for an entire office suite when most of the competition was selling each component at $495 (retail) was devastating. WordPerfect was hit with a common problem where it made economic sense for them lose marketshare rather than immediately cut prices by 90%. They eventually did offer a product mixed with Borland's Paradox and QuatroPro but by then it was too late.
But still, there is a reason pretty much everybody I know use some kind of web based email, gmail probably being the most used. I don't think it's because they hate it. While I don't know how many uses Google docs, you have to be some kind of hardcore office nerd to really need something else.
It wasn't just the competitive upgrades. They also struck deals with OEM's so that, for a while at least, it was hard to find a Windows PC that didn't come with MSOffice 'for free'. That was the point where the company I worked for switched from WordPerfect to Word. And people complained for the next 6 months about the lack of WordPerfect's show codes feature. Of course, they eventually got used to Word, but victory didn't come because of quality or desire - it was monopoly bundling deals pure and simple.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...