Blog of Tushar Phadke

With Google Apps, It’s Game On

When Google released its Google Apps Premier Edition, it sent a clear message to Microsoft that the market for office software was up for grabs. However the challenge plays out, one thing is clear: Customers will benefit.

With the release of Google Apps Premier Edition, there’s little doubt that Google  has its sights set squarely on Microsoft and the market for office software . Add in the fact that marquee names are on board, including Procter & Gamble for the new software suite, and there’s clearly at least some degree of threat behind that challenge.

What remains to be seen are how Microsoft will respond, whether users will adopt Google’s offerings in significant enough numbers and how the competitive landscape may unfold over the next few years.

The threat Google poses to Microsoft may not even be in the form of direct competition, however, Google Apps is different from Microsoft Office. It’s not going to directly compete with Office — it’s just going to bleed it dry. It will spread virally from user to user, small team to small team, and might be really effective for ad hoc, short term projects.

In other words, it will likely win acceptance primarily for smaller projects, while Office will continue to dominate larger-scale and longer-term uses. Of course, Austin noted, those small projects could accumulate like snowflakes:

“After a while, they’re 10 feet deep and you’re buried.”

So instead of competing directly with Office, Google Apps will compete by not competing, so to speak. “We see Google Apps decreasing the amount of time people spend in Office,”

“They’ll still want Office, but not as much. They’ll be slower to upgrade, and they’ll make it harder for Microsoft to maintain its revenue stream.”