Thursday, August 4, 2011

Is Microsoft Office still the sector leader in productivity applications?

By Jack Brisk


Microsoft Office 2010 is the latest version of Microsoft's selection of productivity and word-processing software. It includes many new features, improvement in control interface and file sharing capabilities. The really radical shift took place in Microsoft's approach to the web world. Now Microsof Office package contains free online services for creating text documents, spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations. It is an attempt of Microsoft to grab it's chunk of the market for online text-editing and to stop the advance of it's largest rival in this area "Google.

Microsoft Office has been under a lot of pressure latterly from many sides. There are traditional rivals like open-source Open Office which is totally free and is available on all the main platforms, Windows, Mac and even Linux. There's also iWork from Apple which is a bundle of productivity apps and other software substitutes to Microsoft Office.

But Microsoft Office now has to face competittion from a new side, Google introduced it's Google Docs serice that can enable users to create text documents, spreadsheets and presentations completely absolutely free. They even give the chance for the users to keep the files on Google's servers and have them accessible from everywhere. Google Docs made it super straightforward to share documents and work on a project with co-workers who can be placed all around the globe.

Microsoft is replying to this new competition from Google by making online versions of Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint. This is certainly a step in the correct direction and can help Microsoft to keep it's users. But it has to be said that Microsoft doesn't feel so comfy in the sphere of internet services, as it is still just a traditional old software company.

There is a large number of small enhancements and changes in Microsoft Office 2010, but the net Word, Excel and Powerpoint services are the crucial one. This is the battle that will determine the future of Microsoft Excel. The only real way how Microsoft Office can sustain it's dominant position in the future is by transforming itself into an online service, rather than installing text-editing software users will in the future probably just go to microsoftoffice.com to make word documents.




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