 Back in the 1990s, Microsoft was undoubtedly the biggest name in computing. Two words bear that out – Bill Gates. To ask most people, Microsoft was computing; it was the Internet and was the producer of the hardware and was the driving force of innovation behind it all.
Not that it’s all true, obviously, but that just goes to show you how huge Microsoft’s name was – but along came companies like Google, threatening to steal Microsoft’s thunder.
Known primarily as that search engine you love, Google is actually a gigantic provider of computer services and tools, offering up a wide range of products and services, including many for the cloud.
Microsoft, while responsible for the lion’s share of operating systems in the world today, was never satisfied with Google’s dominance over what you actually do on a computer after purchasing it. The giant launched Bing, their answer to Google, and it’s been bloody cyber war ever since.
Now that the cloud is viable and catching on across the globe, simple things like web browsers and mobile technology are not quite as popular to battle over as are online productivity tools, like Microsoft’s Office 365.
Heads in the Cloud
Microsoft wants to be the high ruler of everything even remotely related to Silicon Valley, so their long-awaited Office 365 is, according to the computing conglomerate, the next step in cloud computing evolution. Google, however, has long provided these types of applications for businesses, like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs, which are shared documents – the “cloud” before the cloud was the cloud.
In short, so it all makes sense, Microsoft’s new Office software is aimed at business people, small, medium, and large – and Google’s applications are aimed at the same audience. So there’s a huge conflict here.
Never a group to shy away from conflict, Google released a blog post titled “365 Reasons to Consider Google Apps,” an obvious shot at Microsoft’s Office 365. Google’s Apps manager, Shan Sinha, took it one step further when he cited that, “You can’t just take legacy, desktop software, move some of it to a data center, and call it ‘cloud.’”
One thing Google seems to be forgetting in all of this is that their popularity grew based on their search engine and easy-to-use mail services. Sure, their Google Docs and Picasa photo-sharing services are great as well, but Microsoft has long been more in tune with what business people need, and that’s why the company has had over 200,000 customers sign up for the beta release of 365 in only the past three months.
At this juncture, Microsoft seems to be ahead in the fight. One should never count Rocky Balboa out, and Google wears that underdog suit rather well, but Microsoft’s pay-for-hosting cloud-based tools are very cost-effective and attractive for business owners, many of whom are cash-strapped companies well behind the 8 ball.
Google Apps is only $5/month, an extremely fair price, but Microsoft, for only a dollar more, is offering better services and more products.
To gain a further edge in the battle, Microsoft is planning to team up with over 20 international telecommunication companies to offer a stronger reseller channel. Having companies like NTT, Telefonica, and the Vodafone Group bundling the services simply gives Microsoft a much larger share of the market, especially considering that Google has trouble dealing with these companies.
While things seem good for Microsoft now, Google’s definitely still in the fight. If the former can edge the latter out, it’s only going to be by a nose. Besides, the cloud is only the current trend. There are still millions of people who choose not to put their sensitive information out there, and that is something both companies need to focus on going forward.
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