Where is Microsoft Without Office?

We have covered and espoused some of the fallacies that the OS is useless without the Apps. To a great extent it is a chicken and egg thing. But generally the OS makes possible the killer app. But we never touched the financial aspects of that relationship. Well consider what Google is saying —

SINGAPORE–In a year, most enterprises will have the choice to “get rid of [Microsoft] Office if they chose to”, suggests Dave Girouard, president of Google’s enterprise division.

Girouard, one of the company’s four presidents including founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, said in an interview with ZDNet Asia that he expects Google’s online document application, Google Docs, to reach a “point of capability” next year that will serve the “vast majority’s needs”.

He acknowledged that Docs is currently “much less mature” than Google Mail or Calendar. “We know it. We wouldn’t ask people to get rid of Microsoft Office and use Google Docs because it is not mature yet,” he said.

But, this is expected to change in a year, when the company’s introduces some “thirty to fifty” updates to Docs to beef up the SaaS (software-as-a-service) office suite. These will include updates to features and performance, Girouard said.

“That having been said, I don’t think Office will entirely disappear,” he added. Instead, Microsoft’s offering will become a specialized offering for office workers who need its additional functions, akin to Adobe Photoshop, which is targeted at skilled workers, said Girouard.

Microsoft Office is “an overkill tool for most people”, he noted.

Now obviously Google has a point of view they wish to project that enhances their position vis a vis Docs vs MS Office. Flat out, Docs is not even in the same league with Office. But I use it a lot for those simple documents that don’t require a lot of formatting. Works great. For heavier stuff I head off to Open Office or Scribus.

But consider, the Windows, MS Office, MS Exchange interlink, but sans the Office component. Viable? Personally I don’t think so. Oh sure many would be satisfied with a W7 desktop running Outlook/Exchange. 50% of most people’s work originates there. But at the Corporate I don’t think it would make it long term. Exchange for all its wonder is still an expensive platform to maintain internally, capital and expense.

So if you consider the cost/value alternatives rolling your email usage to a SaaS environment can make a lot of sense. All that head count goes away, the data center gets a little lighter, etc. At that point you are down to the OS. So Google, sees the linchpin of Microsoft vulnerabiltiy — MS Word. Provide a free or very low cost alternative that weans Corporate America from Word and the cornerstone of Microsoft’s desktop dominance is weakened.

30-50 updates good enough to do the job? In a year that is a heck of a lot of development. So maybe. Best to hold judgement till we see the changes. But Google seems to have Microsofts number on the desktop.

Linky.