Google Docs and Spreadsheets have always been cloud based making it easy to share with others and collaborate in real time. Today at the Atmosphere Conference Google announced many new improvements. Google has always taken a different approach to solving customer problems. Everything at Google starts from a web based Software as a Service (SaaS) approach that solves the 80% problem without all the complexity and overhead of client based applications.
Erick Schonfeld at Techcrunch says; "Slowly but surely, Google keeps trying to chip away at Microsoft’s core Office productivity suite with Google Docs, its free online word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software. Today, Google Drawing is being added to the mix and Google Docs and Spreadsheets is getting a major realtime update."
David Berlind at InformationWeek is much more aggressive. "Make no mistake about it. Google is going for Microsoft's jugular. The deathmatch is on and, at the very least, it's for bragging rights to what we at InformationWeek are calling the "collaborative backbone." It becomes a battle that's less about Google Docs versus Microsoft Office and much more about the collaborative infrastructure behind Google Apps versus Microsoft's SharePoint and Exchange."
Google Apps including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Sites, and Groups are easy to use, free to consumers, and very inexpensive for businesses. They are what Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovators Dilemma, would call a "disruptive technology" that changes the competitive landscape. When the entrenched leader over shoots customer needs, it opens an opportunity for a competitor to come in on the low end with a simpler, cheaper, faster alternative.
This competitive positioning chart illustrates where Google is coming from, and where it hopes to go in the future. It is the classic Innovators Dilemma competitive curve. Time will tell how it shakes out. The move to the cloud seems to be pretty clear. Only the slope of the curve and speed seems to be in question.
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