The Word Online On Word Online
May 10th, 2010 by ComputerBob
For the past couple of decades, Microsoft Office has completely dominated the market for office productivity suites.
And Microsoft has successfully used its near-monopoly power in that market to repeatedly foist new, data formats onto the world — non-backwards-compatible, proprietary data formats that have created “user lock-in” — forcing Office users to repeatedly upgrade to expensive newer versions that have given most users negligible additional benefits.
But, lately, Google’s suite of free and commercial web-based office applications has begun to threaten Microsoft Office’s user lock-in — and the $12 billion yearly profit that it generates.
So this coming Wednesday, Microsoft will release Office 2010 — but in a few weeks, it will also release Office Web Apps, a free, ad-supported, online version of Office.
While all of that probably makes no difference to Windows, Linux and Mac users who choose to use the free and open-source OpenOffice.org suite instead of Microsoft Office, Slashdot’s readers have a lot to say about its possible effects on the future of office productivity suites.
Permalink:
http://www.computerbob.com/wp/the-word-online-on-word-online.php
Tags:
Consumer Info, Google, Internet, Microsoft, Software, Web Development