Posted on 07/15/2009 5:18:18 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Everyone predicted Microsoft Corp. wouldn't take long to fire back against Google Inc.'s latest foray into its home turf.
It took less than a week.
On Monday, Microsoft said it would offer a free version of its popular Office software suite that would run on the Internet.
The Redmond, Wash., company didn't mention its archrival by name, but analysts saw Monday's move as a strategy by Microsoft to protect one of its most profitable businesses against Google, which already dominates the Internet search market.
The Web-based version of the Office suite will be available next year.
"Microsoft was forced to provide a free product" as an answer to Google Docs, a suite of free, browser-based document and spreadsheet editing software, said Sheri McLeish, an analyst with Forrester Research. "It's a very competitive market out there, and this was Microsoft's opportunity to one-up Google by offering a much better product."
The announcement, made at Microsoft's developers conference in New Orleans, is the latest tit-for-tat in an intense competition between the two technology giants.
The Mountain View, Calif., search giant said last week that it would develop an operating system designed to attract users away from personal computers, where Microsoft is ubiquitous. Google's Chrome OS and software would run on the Internet, where Google has commanding share of the Web audience.
Last month Microsoft released Bing, its answer to Google's popular search engine.
By giving away versions of its Office software, Microsoft risks cannibalizing one of its most profitable products. The company's business software division, which includes Office, made $9.3 billion in profit from $14.3 billion in sales during the first three quarters of its 2009 fiscal year. The unit also has revenue from other software applications and services such as Microsoft Exchange, but the bulk of its sales comes from Office,
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
MS sells software, google sells advertising. Gonna be trouble with free for someone.
No, not a virus. WINDOWS!
Cheers!
It should be free to all the people with vista and no key for MS office.That’s downright mean.
Having pop-ups like the ones in the Yahoo home page will be a little distracting working in excel! Hey Bill, this is not going to work for me or you!
BTT!
Not all ads are going to be well received.
How many people still use excel?
“How many people still use excel?”
I do almost daily at work. At home, not so much but in case I do, I use http://www.openoffice.org/
Retailers typically expect 4 or 5 % profit and make a higher annual return because of inventory turnover.
I daresay Microsoft products would be even more widely used if the retail price was cut in half.
How many people will trust their computing to online storage and programs?
You mean my Trade Secrets and business records should not be available to Chinese and Eastern Europe hackers? How mean.
I think this is an idiotic idea. I'd go back to Paperclip III on a Commodore 64 before I'd consider anything like this.
Windows is not web-based though.
I already have it but I never use it. Instead I use Open Office, instead and it is free. They made Office 2007 unnecessarily complicated and frankly ruined it. I should have saved my money.
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