Poll: Is Eric Schmidt Kidding Or What?
Today at Web 2.0 Expo Google CEO Eric Schmidt publicly announced that Google will add a presentations product to its Web Office range of apps, thus completing a Web Office suite and ending (many) months of speculation. It was soon confirmed by the official Google blog, where the Google Docs & Spreadsheets team informed us about "the bun we've got in the oven" - meaning a presentations app. Helping the, er, procreation of the presentations app (what's with the baby pun?) was the acquisition today of Tonic - a technology for presentation creation and document conversion. There's also some debate on Techcrunch as to how far along Google was with the presentations app already (hmmm, ok baby puns are fun).
Yet, seriously now, in today's speech Eric Schmidt continued the line about Google Web Office NOT being a direct competitor of Microsoft Office. Who's he kidding? Curiously, this line of thought was continued in one of the Expo sessions I attended later in the day - where Rajen Sheth, Enterprise Product Manager, Google, also claimed they aren't competing with Microsoft. Rajen's argument was well thought out, and went as follows: competing with MS would miss the main goal for a Web-based office suite. Instead Google is starting from the ground up and building a suite of products that will leverage "the native use of the Internet". Collaboration is a killer app, and it is a different paradigm from what Microsoft Office does.
I paraphrased Rajen, but he did make a convincing case. Especially as web apps being 'web native' is a key concept we espouse here on Read/WriteWeb. So what do you think? Are Eric Schmidt and Rajen Sheth right that Google Web Office doesn't compete with Microsoft Office? Or should they fess up and admit that they have Redmond in their sights? Please tell us in the poll below:
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I guess he's simply saying that they aren't directly competing with Office, in the same way in which Paint Shop Pro and ACDSee aren't directly competing with Photoshop.
I think this argument has little merit. It's not the first time that a product appears and tries to offer a simple and a lightweight alternative to an already established product. The fact that Google has billions of dollars to spend and that they can, if they want, do anything, doesn't really mean that we should contemplate about it if there aren't any clear signs of it actually happening.
Posted by: Stan Schroeder | April 18, 2007 12:56 AM
Eric's argument sounds like marketing to me. I "translate" his argument as being:
Sounds like a marketing gimmick to me.
Overall, I found Eric's manner throughout to be extremely coy...
Posted by: Kevin Farnham | April 18, 2007 1:05 AM
Both arguments are right. They are competing with Microsoft but they are doing this not by producing a rebadged clone of Microsoft Office (a la Openoffice) but by building an office app that takes advantage of the internet/new technology.
Posted by: Simon Leyland | April 18, 2007 1:24 AM
Both arguments are right. They are competing with Microsoft but they are doing this not by producing a rebadged clone of Microsoft Office (a la Openoffice) but by building an office app that takes advantage of the internet/new technology.
Posted by: Simon Leyland | April 18, 2007 1:24 AM
Microsoft's customers are so diverse there's no way Google could compete toe to toe. They are competing whether they say it out loud or not by offering a service which provides the same sort of functionality. Whether it's online or not isn't necessarily relevant if the functionality meets the same customer needs.
Posted by: Rob Mason | April 18, 2007 1:29 AM
I agree with the first comment #1...I think it is a normal situation that happens almost with any company..
http://www.lucianobove.blogspot.com
Posted by: Luciano | April 18, 2007 5:23 AM
I agree with Simon Leyland (twice :-)
People want to write words, add up numbers and sell people stuff (well, what else is PowerPoint ever used for?) - one method is to use Microsoft Office, another is to use Google Docs. This is the "Google is competing with Microsoft" argument.
ALSO, people want to share ideas, get people to help them create content and to publish to as wide an audience as possible - this is also Google Docs but not competing with Microsoft.
Well, the 2nd argument isn't competing with Microsoft at a product level (Office) but it is competing for the same people/users and, if Google does well, where Microsoft would lose out.
And, I suspect the 2nd argument is the current Google line ...
Posted by: Mike Riversdale | April 18, 2007 5:24 AM
#3 got it right, I think. There's crossover between the products, but they're not the same product. I don't think Google is as interested in going after Microsoft's market as they are in carving out a new one.
For example, I don't think enterprise customers are going to be biting at this anytime soon. At least not until it's much more full featured and offered in the form of a server appliance. I do see a lot of uptake in this with the student market though, as one example - for whom group projects are the norm and the collaboration is a killer app, and they never really use more than the basic features anyway.
Posted by: Eric | April 18, 2007 6:55 AM
As pesky as I find MS Office, this tuft of web apps, as it stands today (and Google isn't even the best), is well and truly nowhere in the same league as MS Office. These are rudimentary attempts at best. When they come to about 40% of the functionality that I get with MS Office Suite, we'll talk.
MS Office already does collaboration well, thank you. If companies have not figured out how to use it (most smart ones have) then it's their problem. In PowerPoint, try Tools -> Online Collaboration, or Tools -> Shared Workspace.
The online spreadsheets cannot be serious contenders for years. Excel is used in banks and media consulting companies, inter alia, where the entire business depends on a whole of sophistication from automation, to filtering, to multivariate analytics.
Show me one thing online that comes anywhere near what Groove offers, which is now a part of MS Office Ultimate.
So, yes, Rajen from Google was spot-on. Google Docs doesn't compete with Microsoft Office Suite. The reason he cited, however, was delusional, and thinly-veiled marketing drivel. Nice try sport, but no cigar. You cater to small time geeks for now, and will, for a while.
Posted by: Shanx | April 18, 2007 7:48 AM
google and microsoft's competiveness will become more clear in near future when both have accelerated their web office applications. how well will they dance? likely, there will be pros and cons to each offering, like most anything else.
but until google puts out comparable desktop office apps, then they are not a direct competitor to that market and thats probably the point Eric Schmidt has made. There will stil be an established market for Microsoft Office for a long time.
New progressive companies will be more apt to adopt the online solutions (which will become part of hybrid apps etc).
So I agree with Googles comments, as long as you can get past they cryptic play.
sull
Posted by: sull | April 18, 2007 8:00 AM
I do think they will compete, but when most people say web apps will never be good enough, I think they're missing the point.
There is a large market of people who use web-based email as their word processor, file store, etc. They may not even own a PC, but use them at cafes, libraries, or schools. RIAs like this are perfect for this user base--they can do more with these apps than what they're able to do with Hotmail, Yahoo mail or Gmail.
It's not so much a feature for feature battle, but an experience and design battle. When RIA apps begin to exploit the full potential of RIA technologies (take your pick) and provide a good user experience, the majority of customer needs will be met. Desktop software will be for those with legitimate needs for specialized functionality, security, or performance, all of which are nice, but the majority of customers don't often need.
Posted by: John | April 18, 2007 10:14 AM
Google doesn't compete with Microsoft in the same way Microsoft doesn't compete with IBM. To me Microsoft already gave up on the client Internet market, as IBM gave up on the PC market. Microsoft will be on the content server side, and Google is our new friend in the home. Microsoft gone so far on the packaged software. They can't turn back anymore.
Posted by: Marco Mugnatto | April 18, 2007 11:15 AM
Depends what you mean by 'compete'. Are the compting on features? Of course not. Google's offerings would be slaughtered in that comparison. Are they competing for customers? Absolutely. It's unlikely that people will be heavy users of both, so a gain for Google is almost certainly a loss for Microsoft (and vice versa).
The larger issue is why Google is so lacking in creativity. The entire Office 2.0 space is, in fact. First they start off by siloing apps into the categories as MS established them... then they say they're different. Sorry folks, but if you were really different you'd invest the time to understand how the creation, collaboration and publishing of information is changing and design a product from the ground up to address that. But don't create a word processor, a spreadsheet and a presentation package then trumpet how you're oh so innovative and new. You're not - it's Microsoft Office in web form... yawn....
Posted by: rick gregory | April 18, 2007 11:21 AM
rick: MS Office aren't new also. There was lot of integrated spreadsheet, word processor and database packages back in the eighties, even before MS Office. These three applications have no substitutes. The only thing that changes is exactly the platform where they run. DOS -> Windows -> Web. And I think what Google isn't doing is exactly to trumpet that they are innovative. "We are not competing with Microsoft. But if people preffer to use the Web platform, well, profit".
Posted by: Marco Mugnatto | April 18, 2007 11:34 AM
Google's claiming the higher ground. By stating they don't compete with Microsoft, what they're really saying is that they're the more advanced company. It's pure PR.
Posted by: Jon Silvers | April 18, 2007 11:43 AM
WHY GOOGLE WILL NEVER REPLACE MICROSOFT OFFICE...
Google is an Ad Network. As such, Google is in the business of Expanding their Inventory, Attracting Advertisers, and Improving the Return on the Placement of Advertising.
Google has/will find office applications do not lend themselves to advertising. (Ask yourself, would you use it?)
Why then would Google over the medium term invest in building an office application business? Short Answer: They wont.
We will continue to see a half baked mishmash of Google Office products. Why? It isn't Google's core competency. And it is unlikely to ever be. It just doesn't pay.
Will some company create an attractive and less expensive office suite and cut into Microsoft's 95% market share? Probably. MS Office is PRETTY EXPENSIVE and alternatives with less (but sufficient) functionality are relatively easy to create, hence all the office 2.0 startups.
Posted by: Jonas | April 18, 2007 1:45 PM
It's metaphor recycling time again... Google intends skating to where the puck's going to be. They don't feel a need to go to the part of the ice where Microsoft currently is.
Posted by: Andrew | April 18, 2007 1:54 PM
To accept what Google is saying one would have also believed that Microsoft was not copying Mac's UI 20 years ago or even today. It is a lie. It's posturing. Apple plays this same game with Microsoft too. Steve Jobs & Co is constantly claiming they are not competing against Microsoft. Who are they kidding: no one. Apple's "Pages" application from their iWork suite is targeted directly at Word. As well as, Keynote against PowerPoint and a sometime to be released Excel competitor. Google is no different. They each may have their strengths/weaknesses and target market, but they are still in competition. This nonesense about one is for a more mature business environment and the other for "average" consumers is rediculous. I ask for how long?
Posted by: Chi-Guy | April 18, 2007 3:11 PM
It is certainly a competition. It is a new web battle. The ones who disagree or overlook this fact may also have forgotten that Microsoft is preparing to make the Office online. Once there is Office Alive and there is Google Apps, can we still say that they are not competing to each other?
As I would like to emphasize, this battle is a natural consequence of web evolution. A new web (Web 2.0) needs new editing methods. This is the reason Google's approach is so attractive and it will succeed. When more and more web users join to the force of Web 2.0, the user group of Microsoft Office will start to wane.
But on the other hand, online processing will never completely replace offline ones because we need privacy and offline applications always ensure higher privacy than online ones. Since the percentage of private information is usually a smaller chuck of personality, online applications will eventually take a greater market share than offline applications. This is why Google will win the battle over Microsoft.
Posted by: Yihong Ding | April 18, 2007 5:38 PM
I agree with Richard on general summary of the article.
On top of that, this is not the first time Mr. Schmidt has been very misleading. If you recall, Danny of searchcast daily also interviewed Mr. Schmidt in regards to the YouTube buyout and when he questioned him about the lawsuit fund, Mr. Schmidt acted as if it did not exist.
Posted by: kaz | April 18, 2007 11:04 PM
>Will some company create an attractive and less expensive >office suite and cut into Microsoft's 95% market share? >Probably. MS Office is PRETTY EXPENSIVE and alternatives with >less (but sufficient) functionality are relatively easy to >create, hence all the office 2.0 startups
OpenOffice does that and is free, yet has little traction. Why? Because while MS Office is relatively expensive for personal users, for businesses it's relatively cheap - about the same price as the chair their users are sitting on. Most people know how to use it, so there is always a retraining arguement against change.
(There's also the tie-in to VBA, which is often used in large organisations)
>Apple's "Pages" application from their iWork suite is >targeted directly at Word.
I'd strongly disagree with that, but I think it's a good illustration of Eric Schmidt's point. I have both Pages and Word installed on my machine and I use them for very different tasks - Pages is more consumer DTP than a WP - if it compares with any MS product I'd say Publisher.
It's interface is far simpler, overall, than Word, because it abandons a lot of functionality that is irrelevant to a consumer app - hence lots of people missing the point when they say Pages can't challenge Word without better change tracking and collaboration features, etc.
Meanwhile, your web office apps have better collaboration features but are pretty poor at things like layout flow, font control, etc, as they're tied by what the browser / Flash supports.
Which to repeat what other people above have said, means products like Google Office and Pages ARE competing with Word - but not by trying to re-implement them a la OpenOffice, rather by focusing on the functionality a subset of users require. So there's some truth to what Schmidt and Jobs say, if they're talking about a product comparison.
I think it's a valid approach - it's hard to think of occasions when you need to work collaboratively on something that also requires the strong presentation an app like Pages gives you. And it's better to have a strong vision of a distinct product than trying to clone MS Office using browser technology.
Keynote, on the other hand, has always been a PowerPoint killer and I don't think anyone's said anything otherwise.
Posted by: JulesLt | April 19, 2007 4:59 AM
Google Apps are not competing with MS Office, because MSO is tied to a paradigm that is headed for extinction. We're seeing the desktop lose relevance quickly! And just as WordPerfect stumbled badly in the transition from DOS to Windows, Microsoft is stumbling badly in the transition from PC to web.
Google is leagues ahead in this race. They are not competing--they are eating Microsoft's future lunch.
This is a classic example of disruption (in Clayton Christensen's sense) unfolding right before us. While Google Apps seem underpowered at the moment, they have certain advantages that will appeal to a broad set of the population. And as users that need the collaboration capability flock to Google Apps, it could result in a strong network effect. The first mover, Google, will benefit from that phenomenon.
College students will start using it because it's free and convenient, training the next generation of users. And then the low-hanging fruit will keep switching over to Google, forcing Microsoft further and further up the ladder, until they are precariously balanced high above the ground and ready to collapse.
Google is playing this exactly right.
Posted by: Benjamin | April 19, 2007 2:47 PM
There's a large segment of the market that doesn't want (or legally may have difficulty) having their documents stored or worked on 'out there' on the web. I work on contract for government departments; most are tightly locked down environments. There's no way they're letting their documents anywhere near the web. Some don't even provide staff with web access. Web apps don't suit many large organisations with security concerns, nor all private users, who may lack access to decent and reliable broadband.
Posted by: catherine | April 19, 2007 5:44 PM
hmm to be honest i can't see office giving up it's market share any time soon. you gotta realise all for home users and students costs isn't really an issue cos they all just pirate the software. for businesses cost isn't really an issue cos software is only a tiny % of an employees salary. Saving 1% of an employees salary by getting them to use an inferior non-standard product seems pretty far fetched.
i know everyone hates to admit it, but ms make a damn good office suite - anyone who's suffered through Lotus Notes will say the same thing.
google better at collaboration? yeah at this point - though nothing really stopping microsoft from setting up a super VPN infrastructure that moves company offices online and uses existing office suite software.
fact is that microsoft products have a good user interface. ajax stuff through a browser will never beat native apps for performance (and this coming from someone who writes ajax apps)
Posted by: Steve Boyd | April 23, 2007 3:58 PM