Apps for your Domain
Monday 28th August, 2006Google is announcing
the beta testing of the Google Apps for Your Domain - which do not include
the recently launched (or upgraded) Writely or Spreadsheet. You can sign
your organisation up for the service here,
but there is no guarantee you'll make it, given expected high demand.
So is Google finally going for the kill of the Redmond borg by attacking it's most lucrative franchise exactly when their other one (Windows) will be contributing somewhat fewer billions due to the cost of the Vista launch?
Reading the discussion on Slahsdot this morning, most people seemed genuinely convinced that both Writely or G-Spreadsheet don't quite make the cut when compared with Excel or Word; equally, though, most seemed convinced that real life users (the millions of them) only use a tiny fraction of Excel or Word: so while it is true that nobody switches from a superior to an inferior product (including myself), the moment of truth really happens when you need that one piece of functionaly Excel does not have: ease of sharing.
Once you experience that need (think of a shared sales forecast), G-S has a foot in the door, and when the next upgrade cycle comes around (like now) people and companies might genuinely wonder if their expense reports REALLY need ribbons !
Nick Carr comments on his blog:
"Broad market for personal productivity applications"?
Hello? Is this 1986 or 2006?
Nick, for Heaven's sake, did you spend the last twenty years in a cave? That market is dead already. Maybe you are too young to remember but companies such as Lotus, Borland, Ashton-Tate, Wordstar, Wordperfect attempted to do just what you say and were slaughtered, mostly at the hand of Microsoft (and sometimes with the contribution of their own ineptitude).
Innovation in this area is nonexistent, not since the introduction of 3D spreadsheet, back when Lotus 1-2-3 was trying to fend off Excel. By saying that nobody, really, needs Windows.
So is Google finally going for the kill of the Redmond borg by attacking it's most lucrative franchise exactly when their other one (Windows) will be contributing somewhat fewer billions due to the cost of the Vista launch?
Reading the discussion on Slahsdot this morning, most people seemed genuinely convinced that both Writely or G-Spreadsheet don't quite make the cut when compared with Excel or Word; equally, though, most seemed convinced that real life users (the millions of them) only use a tiny fraction of Excel or Word: so while it is true that nobody switches from a superior to an inferior product (including myself), the moment of truth really happens when you need that one piece of functionaly Excel does not have: ease of sharing.
Once you experience that need (think of a shared sales forecast), G-S has a foot in the door, and when the next upgrade cycle comes around (like now) people and companies might genuinely wonder if their expense reports REALLY need ribbons !
Nick Carr comments on his blog:
But the biggest threat is to neither Google nor Microsoft but to every other company hoping to get a foothold in the broad market for personal productivity applications. The combined might of the two companies, with their vast user bases and their billions of dollars in annual investments in infrastructure, should put a chill, and probably a fatal one, into any other company looking to enter this market. Entrepreneurs and their investors, in particular, will not be eager to battle the de facto Google-Microsoft axis.
"Broad market for personal productivity applications"?
Hello? Is this 1986 or 2006?
Nick, for Heaven's sake, did you spend the last twenty years in a cave? That market is dead already. Maybe you are too young to remember but companies such as Lotus, Borland, Ashton-Tate, Wordstar, Wordperfect attempted to do just what you say and were slaughtered, mostly at the hand of Microsoft (and sometimes with the contribution of their own ineptitude).
Innovation in this area is nonexistent, not since the introduction of 3D spreadsheet, back when Lotus 1-2-3 was trying to fend off Excel. By saying that nobody, really, needs Windows.
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