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Google to steal Office Web Apps' thunder?

By Reuters

Posted on 8 Mar 2010 at 07:41

Google has stepped up its assault on Microsoft's productivity software with the acquisition of a start-up company that allows Office users to edit and share their documents on the web.

The search giant has acquired DocVerse for an undisclosed sum. "With DocVerse, people can begin to experience some of the benefits of web-based collaboration using the traditional Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint desktop applications," said product manager Jonathan Rochelle, in a post on the Google Enterprise blog.

Rochelle said that DocVerse software makes it easier for users and businesses to move their existing PC documents to the cloud. Google "fell in love with what they were doing to make that transition easier," Rochelle said of DocVerse.

With DocVerse, people can begin to experience some of the benefits of web-based collaboration using the traditional Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint desktop applications

Microsoft's business division, which makes Office, is the most profitable unit of the company, generating more than $12 billion in profit last fiscal year, more than half Microsoft's $20.4 billion overall profit.

Microsoft said in an emailed statement that Google's acquisition of DocVerse acknowledges that customers want to use and collaborate with Office documents. "Furthermore, it reinforces that customers are embracing Microsoft's long-stated strategy of software plus services, which combines rich client software with cloud services."

Microsoft will later this year launch its own Office Web Apps to coincide with the release of Office 2010.

The DocVerse deal is Google's second acquisition announcement in a week, and marks the company's fourth acquisition in less than a month.

San Francisco-based DocVerse was founded in 2007 by a pair of former Microsoft managers. The company has fewer than 20 employees, according to co-founder Shan Sinha and had raised nearly $1.5 million in funding prior to the Google deal.

According to a report on the AllThingsDigital blog, citing unnamed sources, the price of the deal was between $25 million and $30 million.

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User comments

MS Office web apps must be understood within the wider context of MS Office overall including desktop software.

The market-leader in this field is, by a vast margin, MS Office. The online version of Office is simply a convenient extension of the desktop version. With MS Office 2010 files can be saved direct to SkyDrive, where they can be viewed and edited online.

MS has the fully integrated market-leading desktop software to bring users to the online version. Google does not. The new version of Hotmail which is about to launch is also fully integrated with SkyDrive and MS Office web apps.

So, can you guess who is going to get all the users? I certainly can.

I do feel that MS could have implemented Office web apps more quickly, and perhaps that was for commercial reasons. But it would be inaccurate to suggest that MS are playing catch-up. Google purchased the product they repackaged as Docs *after* Bill Gates announced MS's plan for web-based MS Office. In fact, MS led the way in this field, with online versions of Outlook.

Yes, note that Google purchased Docs. They didn't develop it. This is not innovation by Google, no matter how eager you are to give them credit for it. MS developed Office Web Apps, and this is just version one, it will just keep getting better and better.

http://www.timacheson.com/Blog/2009/sep/microsoft_
launches_office_web_applications

Google Docs poses no real major strategic threat to MS Office, except in theory. Even ignoring MS Office Web Apps, there are better alternatives than Google Docs out there, by the way.

Enjoy! :)