Google competes with OpenOffice, JotSpot, and Web 2.0

Google Apps for Your Domain is all the rage today. The headlines should read "Google takes another step in competing with OpenOffice and Web 2.0 startups". The media headline writers see it as a showdown between Google Apps and Microsoft Office, but it really isn't anything close.

Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access) has been the leader in office productivity apps for more than 10 years. IBM tried to compete with its Lotus Suite, Sun has been giving away StarOffice for years, OpenOffice is also free and open source, and then there are the individual Web 2.0 applications like JotSpot, Zoho, NumSum, and others.

Google Apps do not compete with Microsoft Office, they compete with Sun's StarOffice, OpenOffice, and the free Web 2.0 crowd.

Gmail does not compete with Outlook, just like Hotmail doesn't compete with Outlook.  Gmail has less than 10M users, Hotmail has 240M users, and Outlook has more than 500M users.

Most companies will not be comfortable storing their corporate data on Google's servers so that Google can scan it all and serve up relevant advertisements. The privacy and control issues in the Sarbannes-Oxley era are just too critical.

Individual consumers are very well served by Hotmail, now Windows Live Mail and the integrated calendar and contacts. Both Yahoo and Google have similar offerings.

If businesses will not use Google Apps because of privacy concerns, and consumers are already well served...who will use these apps?

 

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Comments

[Ranjit Mathoda]

Every day companies outsource all kinds of critical business functions with all kinds of private information in it. This may be no different. Hotmail didn't compete with Outlook back when it was a crappy website. Now it's AJAX rich. Gmail is elegant, and although I use hotmail there's times when I wish I had gmail. Many desktop applications benefit from having their core functionality being done through a website instead.

[Timothy Li]

Hi Don,
kids like me who are growing up might give it a shot.

cool blog =)
Tim.

[rgable]

I for one choose to use gmail as my email client rather than Outlook. Less features and integration but good enough. Same for Google calendar.

StarOffice/OpenOffice is just a free, inferior implementation of MS Office. The individual online apps weren't compelling. But I think Google's strategy of incremental new tools is gaining momentum. Some of it wasn't usable (Google Spreadsheet, Google Reader), some of it is (Google Desktop/Sidebar, Google Blogsearch, Google Talk), some of it is too soon to tell (Writely).

And while Office and Windows are locked-in on corporate PCs, the only new tool I've adopted lately from MSFT has been FolderShare.

Do I anticipate the day when Google replaces Microsoft Office for my team? Yes.

[Lloyd D Budd]

Careful Don not to spill the Microsoft koolaid. You come across as overconfident.

What do you think Google's strategy is? Of course, it is to gain share of the productivity platform. Taking it from the small players is not worth reporting about. From Google's perspective likely a harder user base to convert. Everyone wants a slice of that MS pie.

[Don Dodge]

Thanks for all your comments. I am just having a little fun today swimming in the Microsoft KoolAid.

Most of the press yawns at Microsoft's announcements and gushes over Google's similar beta releases. That is OK...it goes with the territory. Many years ago Microsoft got the same royal treatment from the press while IBM got panned. We all love to cheer for the under dog.

Google has about 10M users of Gmail so there are definitely people using it. But, there are 240M Hotmail users and over 500M Outlook users. The difference in scale is often overlooked...and misunderstood.

Sensational headlines declare Google (insert whatever beta) will kill Microsoft. Makes for a good headline but the reality is very different.

[Rob]

Very seldom an either / or.

Lots of power, storage and privacy on my local machine for certain things. Lots of advantage in a browser-based app. The proper blend wins.

r

[Don Dodge]

Rob, Sage comments. You are right, it is not an either/or situation.

Finding the right blend of client/server/services will be the winner. Microsoft already has good client and server products. Windows Live and Office Live are aimed at the web services part of the solution.

[Scott Quick]

Hi Don,

Please don't take this rant personally, but I still hold out hope for MSFT ... to that end, I believe a frank exchange is in order.

I normally enjoy reading your posts, but this particular entry [combined with the one to follow] are so laidened with hubris and hypocracy that I'm not sure if they are a byproduct of some sort of horrible DEC-daze flash back. Read together, they drip irony:

[From this post] "Most companies will not be comfortable storing their corporate data on Google's servers ... privacy and control issues in the Sarbannes-Oxley era are just too critical." [but your next post is from Intermedia.NET, the number one US provider of hosted Exchange and Web hosting]. What's your point: Hosting data and apps externally is good as long as it's with an MSCP and not with Google?

Having had the good fortune of consulting to some of the world's largest and most successful corporations, I can tell you with confidence that most BOD's and senior executives look forward to the day when commodity IT services - such as email, messaging and even office apps - are purchased like eletricity. Those services no longer provide enterprises with competitive advantage; rather they are an unwelcomed distraction and unnecessary drain on valuable and finite resources.

Despite your assertions to the contrary, hosted solutions - especially those already or nearly commoditized - can actually provide enhanced QoS, auditability, accountability... yes even beyond the most robust enterprise IT environments. Let's put it this way: there better be a value add to hosted solutions or Windows Live is DOA.

But I digress. It's the attitude that makes folks so anti-Microsoft. What Redmond needs to understand - and get its employees to embrace - is that people and companies now have [viable] choices where heretofore there really where none.

Don't get me wrong: Google isn't the end-all, be-all... and Microsoft isn't going to disappear from the corporate desktop; but advancements in technology [namely open standards like XML, SOAP, RSS and improved connectivity through increased bandwidth] creates the environment for major [if not tectonic] changes in the status quo.

SQ

[Don Dodge]

Scott, Thanks for your comment. I agree, choices are great and there are more now than ever before. Competition is great for customers and it drives competitors to delived innovation.

I think we saw the lack of significant competition in the web browser space over the past few years allow Microsoft to ignore feature development. FireFox, Flock and others have forced Microsoft to put resources into delivering an updated Internet Explorer. This is a good thing.

I get your point on the hypocracy of the two posts. The second post was really a joke, at least to me, egged on by a humorous press release from Intermedia.net

Companies outsourcing their applications is a very individual thing, some will do it and some absolutely refuse. There is not one right way. Some companies will outsource certain applications but keep others internal, so even for companies that do outsource there are issues beyond just where the data resides.

Thanks for your comment and insights.