Microsoft Office Web: Good for Its Competitors?
The much-anticipated online version of Microsoft Office will roll out into Technical Preview later this summer. While Microsoft has announced that it will be free to everyone with a Windows Live account (and thus free to anyone), it looks like the free version will not have the full feature set. In a detailed post over on GigaOM Pro (subscription required), Tom Reestman explains that this is a case of Microsoft tripping over itself by wanting the best of both worlds — to offer a free, web-based solution for consumers that leverages the Office brand to compete with Google Apps and Zoho, while at the same time telling businesses that it’s really just a supplement to the “real” Office on the desktop, and that it will require licensing and server costs in order to get the full package.
Microsoft has a great brand in Office, a huge user base and an opportunity to come up with an online product that blows its online competitors out of the water — unfortunately, as it’s still heavily reliant on revenues from the desktop version of the suite, it looks like the web app will be compromised, which is good news for both Google and Zoho.
Are you looking forward to Office Web?
First it has to allow seamless integration between “fat” office and online. If it’s going to be at least like SharePoint integration – this will be really useful.
They can’t make it free and full featured without changing and reshaping whole company where Office sales is driving force not from revenue standpoint but also company identity, which is even bigger IMHO than Windows brand.
Office 2010 sounds interesting, but why wait for it to come out when you can use a product like eXpresso which already exists. I use eXpresso for business and personal needs and I LOVE IT! eXpresso provides real-time collaboration and editing control for shared Microsoft Office files in the cloud. Check it out at http://www.expressocorp.com
o, comon – if you are pushing something – push something comparable. expresso is Excel only… from their web site: “(PowerPoint and Word coming soon!)”
The only comparable product I know is ThinkFree (http://product.thinkfree.com/office), which sucks IMHO
Microsoft have currently busy at work on Office 2010 adding a host of new features such as online web versions of the Office 2010 applications, but as part of their pre-launch strategy they’ve clearly come up with another innovative promotional tool for their upcoming product
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