Web Office Wars - Google won this week’s battle Vs. Microsoft
The Web Office Wars are heating up. My guess is that this week will prove historically significant.
Three significant events took place:
- Microsoft produces … well… not much: The fog of this technology war cleared a little, as vaporware turned into reality and Microsoft released Office Live. Rather than it being the Next Wave Productivity Tool I had hoped for (see Web Office white paper), Office Live seems to be just an online presence tool kit. You can find their list of offerings at http://officelive.microsoft.com/OfficeLiveEssentials.aspx. The offering includes circa 1998 tools like
- Easy-to-use Web site design tool
- Free domain name and hosting
- 50 personalized e-mail accounts
- Storage and data transfer
- Web site traffic analysis and reporting tools
- One location for information sharing
- Manage your business online
- Google starts powerfully, but slowly: On Feb 10, Google’s Stephanie Hannon announced Google was providing hosted email to San José City College.
We’re testing a new service with the school by hosting Gmail accounts with SJCC domain addresses (like student@jaguars.sjcc.edu), plus admin tools for efficient account management. Massive storage and features that tame the most unruly inboxes, like powerful mail search, conversation view for messages, and a fast interface, make Gmail very handy for students. Together, we’re pleased to provide this channel for better communications and a stronger community for all 10,000 SJCC students.
That is, Google is beta testing a true Zimbra like Web Office solution on a highly demanding College Campus. Ross Mayfield calls the students at college today Millennials. He says they have 5 to 7 chats open at all time. They collaborate on everything. Fun, homework, research. Imagine what kinds of social media tools they expect to have when they arrive at work upon graduation. Google has jumped right into the fray, having these students pound on Gmails new chat features. Google is already reacting to feedback about the Gmail, as one student blogger points out.
- The VCs and the Entrepreneurs have woken up to Web 2.0 in the Enterprise: I don’t know exactly when this happened, but at TiE’s Web 2.0 in the Enterprise event there were plenty of VCs and entrepreneurs in the room.
Right at the end of the discussion, one member of the audience asked simply
“Where is the VC money in Web 2.0?” The answer was consistent amongst all the panelists (and the audience), and summed up best by Forrester’s Charlene Li:
There are a lot of people already chasing Web 2.0 in the consumer space, however, there are almost no companies chasing Web 2.0 opportunities in the enterprise space.
Google may have done well this week, but with entrepreneurs waking up to the opportunity that is Web Office, and with Microsoft’s historically great track record of improving upon bad 1.0 offerings, there will be much still to come.
Yes, Google is definitely leading this race and the likes of Microsoft will continue to play catch up. Here is what is interesting though, and give it some thought (See my blog at http://wisezen.blogspot.com ):
The engineers and PMs at Microsoft are as smart as Google, if not smarter. The difference, my friend, is the culture. The Google culture of innovation means that Google engineers and PMs live in the Web 2.0 world- I am not so sure about our friends from Microsoft.
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