
Office 365 shows Microsoft isn't yet serious about the cloud - rytis
http://blogs.computerworld.com/18542/office_365_shows_microsoft_isnt_yet_serious_about_the_cloud
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programminggeek
Maybe I'm crazy for thinking this, but am I the only one who doesn't think
that "the cloud" has to equal "the web"?

Dropbox is probably my favorite cloud based service and guess what, I almost
never use the web client. Sure the web client is awesome and super useful, but
most of the time I'm using the native apps.

I agree that MSFT needs to massively improve Office web apps, but just because
the primary focus is syncing with existing office apps is not a bad thing at
all. For those of you not keeping score at home, Office is probably the most
popular boxed software in the world outside of Windows.

Microsoft would be incredibly stupid to tell all their customers that they now
have to use web versions. Their customers would tell them they want to keep
using Outlook, Excel, Word, and Powerpoint like they have for the last 15
years.

If you were sitting on millions of existing office users, they'd be your #1
potential customer base too. That's just good business.

As nerds we all love the internet and the potential of the web, but as
entrepreneurs, we should look at what Office 365 is doing and learn a few
lessons from the pros. Already MSFT is signing up big enterprises on this
thing. If they can execute at all, it's going to be a BIG hit.

Ballmer might not get consumer products at all, but when it comes to selling
to and serving business customers, he gets it.

~~~
billybob
"Microsoft would be incredibly stupid to tell all their customers that they
now have to use web versions."

Yes, they would. But they'd also be stupid NOT to do what Google Docs is
doing.

1) Offer a web-based set of apps that do most of what the desktop versions do
and also facilitate sharing. 2) Make it easy to tie those in with desktop
versions of Office (see Google Cloud Connect).

This lets them capture the desktop-only people, the web-only people, and those
stuck in the middle.

If they don't do this, they're pushing everyone but the desktop-only people
away.

The question is whether they will do it well enough to keep their customers,
or whether their hesitance to lose the OS lock-in will make them do a
hemigluteal job on their web app, in which case people will go with Google
Docs or Zoho anyway.

~~~
Michiel
You should check out Office 365...

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nextparadigms
It's pretty obvious why this is happening and it was expected. Microsoft
doesn't want you to go cross-platform. Going fully closed-based means they
won't have as much power on the OS side. Plus, they make a lot more money from
the OS and software (Office) and they don't think they'll make as much from
the cloud services.

So it's Microsoft's profit incentive to keep you locked in on their OS, while
Google's profit incentive is to make u go cross-platform and use the cloud.
The web is Google's home turf where they make most of their money, so it's in
their best interest to do that.

Both Microsoft and Apple will never be really serious about the web, because
at the end of the day that's not their main priority. Their main priority is
to get you to use Windows/iOS and to buy their (Apple's) devices.

~~~
127001brewer
_... Microsoft's profit incentive ..._

Exactly right: it's in Microsoft best interest to not to enter the "Post-PC
Era".

However, I have often wondered when will Microsoft be irrelevant? Will there
be a technology world without Microsoft (or a vastly different Microsoft)? Or
will Microsoft's intrenched position in the corporate (and enterprise)
environments ensure its continued (and varied) success?

People "accept" Microsoft products in a work environment largely because of
inertia and a distaste of change. Very good arguments can be made whether or
not there are just-as-good or better alternatives, but I believe that
organizations can thrive without Microsoft technologies.

And maybe the inertia and distaste of change is a generational phenomena,
because I cannot imagine a future world where my children are using Microsoft
products. When I was growing up, I learned how to program using a Commodore 64
(and the "cool kids" had beepers) and then Microsoft was a blessing of sorts
since it was accessible and affordable. But now we truly have technological
advances in terms of hardware and software, so why will our future accept
technology based in the past? (Really, how much of Windows 7 isn't based on
the old Win32 APIs?)

As a casual observation, it seems to me that the battle for corporate e-mail
will be the next major "battle ground"...

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Aloisius
I must be missing something. The primary complaint in this article appears to
be that Microsoft's web offering consists of a lot of silos instead of a
tightly integrated collection. Has the author ever used Google Apps? Because
tightly integrated is not what I'd call it.

I can't use Office 365 because it apparently doesn't support Chrome (or it
didn't in the beta review I read). That said, it is very attractive to me. The
lack of a central directory service in Google Apps and poor scheduling system
drives me crazy. Presumably, with their more expensive version, you'd also get
access to security controls to force mobile users to have password locking and
what not. That is also very attractive.

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contextfree
I think pundits (and Wall Street?) tend to underestimate the potential of
incremental, evolutionary approaches to technology transitions. They're not as
exciting I guess, but over the long term they seem to have at least as good a
track record as "rewrite the world" initiatives.

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wazoox
I've tried Office Live some time ago, and it was pretty ridiculous compared to
Google Docs: it was incredibly hard to upload a file, the web app almost
systematically crashed on most files but the simplest ones; it often froze,
and I had to start back from the login several times.

I was of course using Firefox and Linux, it may be the culprit, I don't know.
Overall a pretty poor experiment.

~~~
contextfree
I've occasionally used the web apps for viewing and editing docs (especially
OneNote) on Linux with Firefox. They are admittedly pretty slow and clunky,
but work adequately for what I need and I don't think I've ever seen them
freeze or crash.

When you say Office Live, was this back when it was actually called that (the
new incarnation is "Windows Live Office", though I don't blame you for not
keeping track of Microsoft's constant baffling name changes)?

~~~
wazoox
It was about 2 months ago I'd say. Well, maybe it was a bad day for the
service....

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schrototo
_[If] Microsoft were serious about the cloud, it would have released a true
Web-based version of Office._

So, by the same token, Apple isn't serious about the cloud either?

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bobfunk
Ironic that I got a huge ad for Microsoft Cloud Power before being able to
read the article!

