Disclosure: I’m a huge Google fanboy. I use all their betas on a daily basis, and feel like they can do no wrong. I have no qualms with their data rentention policies, and will continue to trust them until the day the government successfully subpoenas account information, at which point I will slash and burn. /disclosure
A lot of people have been writing about Microsoft’s public attack on Google’s hosted “Apps” package for businesses. I have extensive experience with this package, using it for all my web clients, although I HAVE NOT used the paid versions yet. While it is painfully apparent that this is the result of an overzealous PR member responding to the fear expressed by MS Office Corporate, the points raised are interesting. Here is what they said (with my response in bold):
- Microsoft asks: How many enterprise users does GAPE really have?
- Google often releases incomplete products to then issue incremental improvements without any official schedule – this is not what enterprise users want, says Microsoft.
- Microsoft argues Google says GAPE is a low cost office option, but if enterprises still need to support MS Office, they will then actually have additional costs and complexity.
- Google makes most of their revenue via ads, with other services only on the 1% fringe, says Microsoft, wondering if Google will shut down their office products line if it doesn’t generate the right revenue.
- Microsoft says Google Apps are mostly usable for non-power users and have less features than MS Office tools. Also, they mostly require the company to be always-online.
- Google Apps “don’t have essential document creation features like support for headers, footers, table of content, footnotes etc.”.
- MS says that Google defines a downtime for Gmail (for which they promise 99.9% uptime) as over 10 consecutive minutes of being unreachable. What, MS asks, if Google is down for 7 minutes every hour of a day?
- Google’s direct tech support has limited opening hours. MS writes, “… M-F 1AM-6PM PST – are these the new hours of global business?”
- Microsoft writes that Google argues most people only use 10% of the features in today’s office products. Microsoft argues that however not everyone uses the same 10%.
- As Google rolls out features on a constant basis, Microsoft says customers lose control of planning the update, and also aren’t able to sufficiently train their employees.
I don’t know the answer to this, but does it matter? This isn’t a “format war” since GAPE can both read and create .docs. Google accounts are free, so you can share documents with anyone. Operative word is enterprise. Probably far less than MSFT, but it’s also far newer than MSFT. Point moot.
Very true. Google is the king of beta. That said, when incremental improvements are rolled out, they are instantaneous and seamless since GAPE is hosted. No compatibility, hardware upgrade, not even a download, nothing. And for that matter, after Vista, so what if MSFT has a schedule? We no longer have any reason to expect them to meet it. Inclement is a pointed word choice. GAPE is a developing suite, that will never be “complete.” Because it’s hosted, there is no “version 1.0.” It will always be improving and adding features as they are available, not waiting for the next purchasing season.
This is really interesting. MSFT actually damages themselves here, saying that while other things work just as well, Office costs a lot. It will continue to cost you a lot if you continue to support it. GAPE does not do layout. It does not do macros. It doesn’t do a lot of things that Office does, but that doesn’t mean that it needs to. If your business needs include those features then by all means use it. But if you just need to type, spell check, collaborate, and store, then you don’t need MSFT.
If I were writing this a couple weeks ago, I’d laugh, but MSFT has a point here. Google recent dissolved its paid video content offerings, and revoked the licenses for anybody who had invested. BUT that was because Google was responsible to the media companies who owned the rights to the material. There is no IP issue with your own documents and Google’s homebrew applications. Plus, at least for the near future, Google doesn’t really have to worry about generating revenue, does it? Honestly, I’d less suprised to hear about MSFT going bankrupt than Google.
Two fold. Less features and for non-power users: True. So true its a no brainer. Google is easy to use, friendly, approachable. I’d like to see the data showing what percentage of MSFT enterprise users count as “power users.” Required to be online: Kinda true. While most “enterprise” environments offer online access 24/7, the introduction of Google Gears changes all of this. This point will need development, but in my opinion, the first is GAPE’s strength, and the second is almost a thing of the past.
While I wouldn’t call them essential features, it is true that google lacks some basic layout abilities. One that kills me is margin control. Google Documents is whatever size your browser window is currently occupying, so its hard to get a feel for how many pages your document will print out to. But as a graphic design person, MSFT lacks these features too. Anybody really concerned with layout control wouldn’t even consider doing their work in Office. They use real power applications like Quark and InDesign.
I’ve never actually seen any of my Google services go down *knock on wood*, but the concept is frightening. Hypothetically. Google Gears makes this less frightening. Still, you can’t write this off completely
According to their site, Microsoft phone support hours for Office 2007 Standard are 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. PST on weekdays and 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. PST on weekends, AND they charge $49 per incident. What’s 24/7 about that? Hey pot, you’re black. Thanks to Microsoft Watch for this one.
So then why should everyone have to pay for the same? Stupid.
Uhh… because there is no need to plan for the update, because the update doesn’t break your system, because it doesn’t rely on untrained IT goons to deploy the updates. I’d rather have features on a constant basis than complete overhauls on a sporadic basis.
The reason MSFT is scared is because it has known for a long time that its products aren’t the best. The company been successful to this point through dirty business tactics like monopolies and backroom dealings. By placing a strangle hold on the users, they had no choice but to keep upgrading. Google is an alternative, and a better one in my book. And this media sabotage attempt only confirms that for me.
Allow me to play devil’s advocate. Consider me unbiased as I hate both Microsoft Office and GAPE.
2. I think they are arguing the scenario where Boss uses Feature X in Word. He loves Feature X, but he also likes that Google Docs are free. He would switch to Google if Google said they would be supporting Feature X in, say, 3 months. They make no promises regarding when or if Feature X will be released. “Corporate America” (in scare quotes) doesn’t like that too much.
3. You’re missing their argument here. They’re saying if your company needs Feature X that GAPE does not have, it makes no sense to use GAPE. They argue Office does everything GAPE does and then some, so if you need Feature X, the costs of Office are a given. Training people to use another program that does the same exact thing is a waste of resources. They aren’t addressing the scenario where GAPE does everything the company needs.
4. Whenever you’re using a webapp you are accepting the possibility that the company will dissolve tomorrow along with your data. Anyone who is using Google’s Office utilities for business reasons and isn’t doing backups is insane.
5. I think everyone agrees that you have to be online to use GAPE and they are targeted toward people who don’t have heavy office needs.
6. Office Power-Users can make absolutely amazing pixel-level precise things happen. With respect to document formatting, there is little Word is not capable of accomplishing. Is it the right tool for laying out a newspaper or magazine? Probably not. But is it capable? Probably. Is GAPE capable? No.
7. I’ve seen downtime in Google search, but haven’t seen downtime in their other apps yet. I’m sure it happens, but just to a very small percentage of their userbase.
9. What they are really arguing is that Google’s incomplete featureset makes it useless for many, many people. The old “Feature X” argument I talked about before. I’m sure they have covered the 10% that the Google Apps team uses, but the needs of geeks are often different from the needs of a business.
10. Yes, they don’t need to update software on the computers, but they still need to train people on GAPE if that is going to be the company’s platform. Training = time employees aren’t generating revenue for the company = $$$.
2. What’s feature X? A macro? Use a dedicated processor. Apart from that, maybe boss sees that new-found collabaration tools (Y) in GAPE outweight usefulness of feature X. If “corporate america” doesn’t like false promises when it comes to their software, then they must have been real pissed about Vista.
3. But if you don’t need feature X, then you are wasting a ton of money. What about feature Y in GAPE? I would by no means consider Office feature complete.
4. Agreed. But its GOOGLE! They just went to TechCrunch20’s Q and A session where they were asked about that. There has not been a SINGLE case of lost data because of Google’s redudant backup policies. Securely erasing is another matter. But like I said in the article, I fully expect MSFT to dissolve before Google the way it’s currently headed.
5. You got me. I’ve still got faith for Gears though. Fingers crossed.
6. Oh man. The great chaz steps off a ledge here. Unfortunately from a precision/feature point of view, Word is one of worst out there. Anyone concerned with pixel precision and layout of any sort SHOULD be using a true document application like InDesign or Quark. The amount of time wasted trying to wrangle Word’s “layout” tools is INCREDIBLE. Unfortunately, many office people have been swindled into learning that backwards system, and now they are reticent to switch. Word is HORRIBLE for layout. Its just some people know how to beat it into submission. I choose the easier route. Word is to InDesign what Paint is Photoshop. No joke.
7. Agreed. The possibility is scary. Is it ok if I say it one more time? GEARS! Thank you.
9. If that were true, then MSFT would have nothing to fear, and this list wouldn’t exist. They are genuinly scared by the fact that people are so fed up that they are willing to give up the padded bonus for simplicity and price of google. I wanted to scream the first time I realized gDocs didn’t do page count, etc. At this point, its much easier for me to fire it up because I can use it on any computer, not just those where Office is installed.
10. Your own argument. Less features equals less training time, right? Cheaper to get running, cheaper to train, cheaper to maintain = less revenue taken away from the company.
I’m not saying GAPE is the end all by any means. I honestly expect MSFT to get off it’s LIVE ass one of these days and present a real web based counterpart to Word. Until then, this is the best and most flexible option I’ve found.
nah mean?
2. Feature X is arbitrary. Yes, it could be marcros. It could be mail merge. It could be pivot tables. Whatever feature allows Boss to not hire a consultant like me for $50-90/hour just to mail out a bunch of stuff or have a custom report.
Collaboration is a somewhat overrated in an Office setting where there already is a LAN. Does GAPE really offer collaboration that’s so much better than editing files on network shares that it’s worth Boss giving up Feature X? (I think they also have collaboration tools, but, again, I don’t use the product so I can’t comment on it.)
3. Right. If you need exactly what GAPE gives and none of the other 90%, then fine. Use GAPE. But they’re arguing that most businesses who use Office need something from the other 90% Google doesn’t implement. If you need something from the other 90%, then you need Office. Supporting both GAPE and Office at the same time is more expensive than supporting just Office.
Again, let me reiterate. They’re talking to the people that need something that GAPE doesn’t offer. If people only need what GAPE offers, then they wouldn’t have a need to keep Office, so the cost of maintaining both is not an issue.
4. Oh, yes. I don’t think Google is going away anytime soon, just like how no one thought Yahoo! was going away anytime soon 10 years ago. (There are now rumors about Google acquisition?) Are you serious about thinking that Microsoft is in danger? They aren’t seeing incredible growth, but when you already have a 90-some% installed userbase, there’s not much more of a ceiling to raise!
6. Let’s observe my language here. :) I didn’t say it was -easy-. I said it was -possible-. You said that Word lacked the features. That’s not the case. I’ve seen people pull off absolutely amazing results with Word, so the functionality is there. It’s just not easy to use.
Would InDesign, Quark, or even HTML/CSS be a better tool in many cases? Possibly! But that’s not the question we’re asking. Microsoft said that GAPE lacked layout tools in Office that people use. That assertion is correct, no?
7. Yes. Either way, it’s kind of a moot point because anyone with brains is going to have a copy of their quarterly reports stored locally. (Actually, confidential fiscal information like that should probably not be on third-party services at all.)
9. I never said that they were scared of GAPE. I don’t think GAPE is really a competitor to Office. GAPE might be a competitor to the low-cost 3rd party WordPad-with-spell-checking-added-on type applications. Office’s competitor is OpenOffice, if anything.
The reason why this list is out is because GAPE has gotten a lot of press lately. MS has a full-time marketing department, so if they didn’t jump on the opportunity to point out, “Hey GAPE can’t do everything you need to do” they wouldn’t be earning their salary. :)
10. Less features = less training time, true. However, everyone already runs Office. Training time is already spent. And remember my point above: less features can also mean hiring an expensive contractor to hack together a workaround for the missing feature.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s feasible to make something truly comparable to Word in JS with the browsers we have right now. There was a Google Tech Talk where a presenter talked about JavaScript performance and pointed out that at a certain point you cannot have a direct mapping between a Desktop Application and a Web-based Application due to the JavaScript engine in all browsers crawling as the amount of JavaScript on a page increases. The Office suite is the swiss army knife of applications and I don’t see anyone putting something comparable up on the web anytime soon.
(And, to clarify, I’m playing devil’s advocate. I use GAPE a little and hate it. I use Office a little and hate it. For some people GAPE is better. For some people Office is better. But your argument as presented seemed so focused on “rah rah omg i hate m$ lolz” that it seemed to completely misunderstand the points Microsoft was trying to make. Hence, my response.)
Ah! Found the link to the JavaScript talk. It was hosted by Yahoo!, not Google:
http://yuiblog.com/blog/2007/08/29/video-smarr/
You can delete this comment, just letting you know that your CMS has cut the closing bold tag off the short description on the main page - rendering all of the following articles in bold.
Nice site though.
Anon -
Thanks for the heads up. I noticed that as well, and have just been too lazy to fix it as I’m rolling out an update to this site somewhat soon.
For the record, the unclosed tag is the result of the excerpt_reloaded plugin. I believe there is a fix or heal argument that will attempt to close tags, but I forgot to turn it on. Mental note made!