Debates in the aftermath of the Google Spreadsheet announcement have climbed the mountains and traversed the valleys of Google's supposed master plan. They've covered the Google vs. Microsoft gorge, the trickling AdSense stream. What they haven't discussed is the file format war, and I suspect that this is far more important than it may at first seem.

These days it's not hard to pitch anything Google does as part of some brilliant strategy to dethrone Microsoft. Despite the fact that the two company's businesses touch at only a few points, the meme is that the two giants are fighting over the same pot of honey. After snapping up Writely, a web-based word processor, Google's eyes looked hungry for Microsoft's Office cash cow. The problem has been that, despite everyone's assumption that the two are locked in battle, it's not clear how a Google Office fits into Google's business plans. The question is made more complicated by the fact that there's currently no shortage of Microsoft Office competitors out there, and some of them are even free. There is no obvious link between Writely and Google Spreadsheet on the one hand, and Google's search business on the other. At least, it's not anything the analysts are talking about.

 

 

 

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I agree. There are many office programs out there now. You don't even have to pay for some of them as they are open source or released as a piece of free internet software.

I quite like Google and would wish them luck if they were to go and compete with the highest of the high competitors, such as Microsoft.
Why shouldn't Google be able to create software as good as some of the free programs, such as Open Office? They certainly have the programmers and it would probably attract new users to the Google Company.

I'm sure we won't find out whether Google are going to fully launch a Google Office package until things have been decided and Google get too greedy for users. If this happened, they would then decide to release Google Office. Whether they do or whether they don't, they'll certainly need to try their best to compete with the existing companies and make their product stand out as the best.

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I believe that Google has the potential to take over Microsoft Office. It might even take over OpenOffice, but I don't think so.

Next program to expect might be Google Presentations.

So far, Google has "absorbed" Microsoft Word (Writely), Microsoft Excel (Google Spreadsheets) and Microsoft Outlook (Google Calendar/GMail).

I'll edit for more opinions.

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Here's what it boils down to:

Microsoft and Google are both getting ahead of the game of online applications.

As cellphones become smart phones and we are looking to UMPCs, the market for software is not just limited to high speed desktop workhorses. Not to mention, how many devices now have internet access? Your phone, game console, laptop, PDA and computer?

We live in an age booming with connectivity. Every new technological device wants to communicate with something. So what's the answer? Release 25 different versions of MS Office? Office 2006 Toaster Edition? No, just make the device with a browser and let the web sort it out.

That's the mentality they are approaching with. Everything can run a browser reguardless of it's CPU, method of connectivity, or manufacturer. So what happens when you make an application like Office entirely web based? Well, now you can update those sales figures from the Staples Center while you watch a basketball game.

Not only that, but how can you pirate a software that you don't have? Web based software isn't loaded on a machine, so it can't be copied. This way if you want to use Office from 10 different computers, Microsoft knows it. Right now, you can buy a copy of Office and load it on 10 machines and Microsoft won't be the wiser.

This is just the beginning. You will start seeing more and more applications move to the web. Eventually you will be able to have a bare system that just fires up a browser and connects to the internet on boot. No hard drive, minimal RAM and a smaller CPU. Like the thin-clients of today, but on a much more practical and widespread level.

You will then see these 'Internet PCs' spring up for next to nothing. $100 or less as the price of LCDs drop.

But that's just my 2 cents on the matter. I could be completely wrong.

 

 

 

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Google is definitely on the rise and ready to take over. It's free and accessible from any where. What more can you ask for?

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Google is already starting to do everything that is possible to do online.

Now all they have to do is make an operating system, and start selling Google computers, and they'll monopolize the computer industry or something like that.

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