From Slashdot tonight:
Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday October 04, @09:00AM
from the i'll-believe-it-when-i-see-it dept.
astrab writes "According to this post at Dirson's blog, Google and Sun Microsystems are to announce a new and kick-ass webtool: an Office Suite based on Sun's OpenOffice and accesible with your browser. Today at 10:30h (Pacific Time) two companies are holding a conference with more details, but Jonathan Schwartz (President of Sun Microsystems) claimed on Saturday on this post of his blog that "the world is about to change this week", predicting new ways to access software."
Back in the late 90s, everyone was predicting web-based applications and there were a lot of Application Service Providers (commonly known back then as ASP's or xSP's) sucking up VC and punters money. Remember PeakHour? I was always skeptical because we didn't have the pipes to make it work.
Well now we do. And we're on all the time.
BillG's argument back then against the ASP model was that you wanted to do your processing and keep your data locally most of the time. And that might be true still for large companies.
For a small, distributed business like TPN, however, I can't see many reasons for having a phat-client office suite. I'm rarely NOT connected to broadband. So an online office app suits me fine. Especially if it means I can collaborate easily with international colleagues. No more winmail.dat attachments. No more $1000 upgrades for Microsoft Office.
Speaking of collaboration, have you seen: http://www.robirwin.com/2005/10/writeboard.html
Posted by: Rob Irwin | Wednesday, October 05, 2005 at 12:59 PM
yeah mate, it's pretty cool. I was telling Mark Jones from the AFR about it just a couple of hours ago. I like small foorprint hosted apps that allow me to collaborate with my colleagues.
Posted by: Cameron Reilly | Wednesday, October 05, 2005 at 03:08 PM
okay, so the Sun/Google announcement was a bit of a non-event. It has the potential to do interesting things, but potential and 50 cents won't buy you a cup of coffee in this town.
Posted by: Cameron Reilly | Wednesday, October 05, 2005 at 07:21 PM
Do not underestimate the subtleties of this announcement. Google are known for their softly softly approach to taking over markets. Lets face it Gmail is still in beta.
Mobile computing will have fat connections soon enough, and we will be buying services / processes for very small amounts of money.
I have used staroffice off and on for years, but always end up back at MS office, usually because my employer had it, and let’s face it; Office is a pretty good package for doing word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. It does the job.
However, if Google can use its reach and style to get more people using star office, and star office can become a straight forward switch, there has got to be a zillion people sick of feeding MS shareholders.
MS on the other hand are the masters of repositioning, so an announcement of MS Office remote, codenamed boogle, would not be a surprise.
I cannot help thinking that Google are walking straight into the MS camp, palms exposed, preaching harmlessness, looking like a threat because they are there, but not looking dangerous enough for a full on attack.
Many of MS competitors in the past have tried to take them on in a public slanging match, and MS always wins.
Also, I think Sun is nicely repositioning itself. Their new range of servers is very slick, and opening up Solaris has put it back on the map. The down loads of this OS are undeniable. Sun have also made a bunch of very useful acquisitions, including Storage Tech, which gives them a foothold into many customers that suit their other offerings.
I think a really smart option here would be for Sun and Google to do a deal whereby Google bought the underperforming software arm. Instantly Google would become the most significant MS competitor, Sun could focus on its main game, and use the extra cash to maintain its momentum.
It is kind of clever to put out an announcement that will get the analysts to review all the options, without hurting either company’s current market value. If the analysts show that more is better, at least both companies will not have too many difficulties selling more to their respective shareholders.
Posted by: Mike Vallender | Thursday, October 06, 2005 at 10:27 AM
Nice to see you weigh in, V!
I totally agree with you that the alliance could provide some interesting stuff, but "could" is the key word here. I've seen too many alliances produce nothing over the years. Let's face it, Sun and Microsoft announced an alliance last year. What happened to that?
Google is, without a doubt, the biggest external threat MS faces at the moment. They are successfully re-defining the way we think about software as a service. MS has been talking the talk on that concept for 5 years but hasn't delivered much outside of Windows Update.
The ASP space is coming into its own, thanks to the final arrival of broadband for the masses and faster processor speeds. Google is ideally placed to lead the attack on MS.
MS isn't to be taken lightly - we both know they have staved off other threats over the years. But those other threats never had a credible attack on their family jewels - Windows and Office. Google are going after the product that brings home much of the Microsoft bacon. What kind of marketshare loss can MS withstand?
BTW, I don't WANT another fat client office. Star Office on the WEB - now that's more interesting.
One other point - why would Google need to pay money for Sun's software arm? What IP do Sun actually own? Star Office is just Open Office which is GPL. Google can get it for free.
Posted by: Cameron Reilly | Thursday, October 06, 2005 at 11:05 AM