I first speculated that Google has been creating a Microsoft Office Killer when they acquired Writely around 3 months back. But the recent limited public beta testing of Google Spreadsheets really proves that fact that they are in fact building a Microsoft Office Killer.
Some might argue that this is just hype and Web applications cannot compete with native Windows desktop applications. But I somehow feel that Microsoft Office has become more complex these days and may be only 15-20 % of the people really need those complex features but for others the Web counterparts may be enough. Apart from the simplicity the other huge factor is cost. Most of the people would be comfortable in viewing a couple of ads on their web applications rather than spending a fortune in buying their Desktop counterparts. Added to all these is that the document could be stored in Google’s Server itself which prevents you from frequent backup pain.
So here is a list of products from Google competing directly with Microsoft Office Applications
- Word – Writely
- Outlook – Gmail
- Calendaring (Outlook feature) – GCal
- Excel – Google Spreadsheets
- Frontpage – Google Pages
- PowerPoint – I am 99.99% sure that Google is currently creating a PowerPoint killer. It’s just a matter of time before it gets released.
Apart from the main Office applications here are other applications for which Google has a competing product.
- Picture Manager – Picasa
- MSN Messenger – Google Talk, Hello Messenger
- Windows Search – Google Desktop Search
- Internet Explorer – Google Tool bar and Google’s support for Firefox.
- Visio – SketchUP, a recent acquisition of Google
I think in the next couple of years (around the release of vista) there could be some stiff competition to gain the market share and as always it is we the users who are going to get benefited as a result of competition. Eagerly waiting to watch Microsoft’s next move. What do u say guys?
Links: