Assault on Microsoft Office - much ado about nothing

Various industry pundits and journalists revived an oldie but goodie yesterday.

Every year or two, tech watchers and writers try to convince the market and customers Microsoft Office will lose share to various other offerings (e.g. Star Office).

The latest of bout of unnecessary wing flapping happened yesterday when IBM threw additional support behind Open Office, the free open source suite of desktop productivity applications.

In a separate development, Cap Gemini has said it’s going to help push Google Office to enterprises.

Om Malik called it open season on Microsoft Office - one of the biggest cash engines for Microsoft (MSFT).

Other observers, including Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet believe the developments will lead to a new war in the desktop productivity applications market.

Puh-leeze. Everyone take a deep breath.

Organizations, especially large ones, are reticent to change nor are the people in those companies willing to spend the time and money on training and implementation of new software suites. That’s unless Microsoft has passed some sort of price threshold with its latest version of Office which I do not believe is the case.

Microsoft has already introduced a hybrid version of Office, called Office Live. True there aren’t many users (40,000 I believe?) but the software giant can grow its online user base over time or migrate those users that feel it necessary to have an entirely Web-based suite over time. Plus, the online version will be better than the castrated versions of Office that are currently available for free.

Expect Microsoft to keep its stranglehold on the applications market for the foreseeable future.

September 11, 2007 | Filed Under News Items and Commentary