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Microsoft to introduce Office on the Web
Tony Baer
Microsoft to introduce Office on the Web
Microsoft has announced that it will offer a downsized version of Office that will work on an ordinary web browser. In poker game parlance, Office 14 for the Web, an example of Microsoft's 'Software plus Services' strategy, is an attempt to meet the Googles of the world and raise them one. While Office 14 for the Web is intended to extend the Office market footprint, it could hasten commoditization of Microsoft's very lucrative $15 billion+ annual franchise.
Office 14 for the Web will be an 80/20 solution
Until recently, the notion of Microsoft Office on the Web might have seemed an oxymoron. However, given that the Microsoft Office franchise is responsible for a large chunk of its $15 billion+ business division revenues - and the fact that Microsoft is staking its future on a strategy of Software plus Services - moving Office to the Web wasn't a question of whether, but when.In the interim, Microsoft Office Live provided a very limited version of Office that could be deployed using SaaS. But now Microsoft is announcing Office 14 for the Web, with a preview to be available by year end. Office 14 for the Web, which will be a subset of the forthcoming Office 14 release, will be far more ambitious than Office Live. It is intended to supplement, not replace, the classic Office 14 rich client. Microsoft's rationale is that you should be able to freely pass work between rich client, Internet, and mobile device, starting from one kind of client and continuing it on another. The new web version will also leverage a new collaboration feature of the mainstream Office 14 release, which will allow multiple users to concurrently edit the same document when accessed online.At first glance, Office 14 for the Web appears a logical example of Microsoft's Software plus Services strategy, whose goal is to replicate the rich desktop experience online in a seamless fashion. On closer inspection, it only fulfills part of that strategy, in that the web version of Office 14 will offer a subset of the rich Windows client functionality, not a 100% replica. But it does so with an Ajax and Silverlight-enhanced rich browser client that offers an 80% solution that looks pretty close to the real thing and will be good enough for most people.If the market accepts an 80% Office solution, that opens the door to online Office rivals Ever since the Windows 3.0 era, Microsoft has virtually owned the enterprise productivity suite desktop. Microsoft's dominance was attributable to two advantages. First, it bet on the Windows 3.0 platform well before Borland, Lotus, or WordPerfect. Second, having left its office suite rivals behind in the dust, Microsoft Office cemented its dominance because businesses were hungry for a de facto standard file format. Nobody missed the worries of whether your Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet could be shared with Borland Quattro Pro users, or whether your WordPerfect document could be read by WordStar or Multimate users.Today, file compatibility is largely a non-issue, thanks not only to the dominance of Office but also to the formal certifying of Office (and rival OpenOffice) XML APIs by standards organizations. Emergence of the cloud has provided the market opening for Google to challenge Microsoft Office with an offering that is available for only $50 per user annually. When compared to roughly $300 retail for Office, amortized over the 3-4 year normal operating life of a PC, Google Apps are somewhat cheaper.That leaves functionality as a key differentiator. As mentioned, Office 14 for the Web won't have all the bells and whistles of the established rich client version, but for most users that will be good enough. And coming out of the gate Office 14 for the Web will have richer functionality than Google Apps.Nonetheless, all this opens a Pandora's Box for Microsoft. If people only use a tiny fraction of Microsoft Office functionality and find themselves satisfied with the web subset, what's keeping them from switching en masse to other online Office suites which have file compatibility and are good enough? At this point, the answer is that Office is so ingrained in people's daily work lives that there is clearly inertia to change.
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