I see IBM are now jumping into the free Office software arena by launching IBM Lotus Symphony.
IBM Lotus Symphony is a free download from the IBM site (registration required).
Up until now, Microsoft’s competition in this space has come from OpenOffice and Google - neither of whom have a strong track record in the Enterprise Office space! The entry of IBM into this space is game changing.
As well as making Symphony free for download, IBM are also committing 35 developers to the OpenOffice development project. Again conferring the the IBM seal of approval on OpenOffice suddenly marks it up for serious consideration by larger companies.
Seen in light of these recent announcements, Microsoft’s recent move to capture the student market for Office begins to have an air of desperation about it!
Sam Schillace (didn’t he play for Italy in the 1990 world cup?) over at Google has just posted that Google are going to roll out the long predicted Google presentation software application this summer.
This is technology which they bought in via their purchase of Tonic Systems (a San Francisco-based company that provides Java presentation software).
This will be integrated into their Google Docs and Spreadsheets which will now (hopefully not) be renamed Google Docs, Spreadsheets and Presentations!
Google are still playing down the obvious Microsoft Office comparison and to a large extent they are correct, these applications are light on functionality yet. The operative word here, though is ‘yet’.
The massive advantage of applications delivered over the web is that they can be updated centrally on the server and everyone using them, automatically benefits from the new functionality. No missing driver issues, no installation woes, it just works.
To the guys at Microsoft. I have been telling you for a long time now that this was going to happen. You need to release a lightweight version of Microsoft Office on the web, for free, with an easy upgrade path to a downloadable paid-for full featured version.
Ignore this much longer and Google are going to start eating in to your Office market share.
Via the Google Blogoscoped site comes news of Google’s integration of Google Spreadsheets and Docs into Gmail. Now, anyone receiving an Excel spreadsheet as an attachment in Gmail will be offered the option to open the Spreadsheet in Google Spreadsheets (see below).
Similar functionality has yet to be added for Word documents but, no doubt, it won’t be long.
Microsoft Office? Oh yeah, I remember that…
Google has released Google Applications for Your Domain - you can sign up and check it out over at http://www.google.com/a.
Google Applications for Your Domain currently allows you to run Gmail, Gtalk, and Gpages (a web publishing tool) through your own domain. One immediate advantage of doing this is that Gmail’s spam filters seem to be very good so running company mail through it should reduce spam problems you may be having.
It is also planned to integrate Google’s online word Processor (Writely) and Google Spreadsheets so that Microsoft Office need never be fired up (or even installed!).
When you sign up you get the following screen:
The functionality is sparse right now but the great thing about software as a service is that updates are constantly being rolled out to the benefit of the consumer. One nice feature in the setup is the bulk uploader which allows you to upload a csv file for setup of your users:
Microsoft needs to be worried. Not because this threatens them from the point of view of functionality but because this new model is quickly becoming the accepted norm. And although Microsoft are getting into this arena too, who would you trust with your company’s data, Google or Microsoft?
UPDATE: D’oh! I forgot to title this post. Title added subsequently along with bang on the head to remind me not to do that again!
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