(Newswire.net — October 12, 2015) — Microsoft’s Office package has been the dominant s
uite used in businesses large and small for over two decades. Ten years ago, Google announced that it was going to wage a war on Microsoft for this area of the software market, with its free online office apps. Earlier this year, president of their Google at Work division Amit Singh made a rousing speech, saying that the apps were now in a position to actually go after Microsoft, and that his goal was to take 80% of the market share currently held by the Washington based software giant.
How Does Google Plan To Achieve This Ambitious Goal?
Singh’s plan to get Google apps into businesses was a very interesting one. Rather than try and convince business to make a full switch, what he instead wanted to do was see businesses use Google alongside their existing MS Office products. A key point was to make the apps as compatible as possible with things like Word and Excel, and their file types. This will mean that should businesses decide to use Google apps as well as Office, it will be easy for them to do so. He then hopes that as businesses get used to working with his tools, they will reason that it is not worth renewing their (often quite expensive) licenses for MS Office when the time rolls around. It is a long term strategy, which Google believe could help them steal the coveted 80% – which amounts to around a billion users – from under Microsoft’s noses with a completely non-aggressive approach.
Another interesting part of the Google plan for office domination is that they don’t actually aim to make their products better than Microsoft’s. Singh’s strategy involves giving the apps only 85-90% of the functionality of the equivalent Microsoft products. The reasoning for this is actually quite sound – there are loads of features in things like Excel and Word that even a lot of the most experienced power users don’t ever touch, and so Google believe it is better to concentrate on the things people do use rather than on creating tools that do every conceivable thing Office can do. Perhaps the users who rely on the missing functionality will fall into the 20% of the market share Google are willing to let Microsoft keep?
Why Businesses May Be Less Willing To Abandon MS Office Than Google Believe
Google’s strategy to actually take market share away from Microsoft is dependent on businesses actually being willing to give up MS Office after a period of using both suites. In a sense, it is still a win for Google if companies keep using both, but they really want to corner the productivity software market for themselves and that means first getting in, and then making MS Office redundant.
However, there are a number of reasons why this may fail. Remember that not so long ago, Google also had some rather ambitious plans to steal market share from Facebook with G+ – at first, some people used both, now, hardly anyone uses G+ and it has become a joke in the social media world.
Third Party Eco-System Around MS Office
One of the reasons why MS Office may not be something businesses are willing to part with is the vast number of third party tools that exist to make life easier for people who use the suite every day. MS Office has been so dominant for so long that good developers like Cogniview have created all kinds of helpful tools that allow you to work smarter with MS Office products like Excel. If you want to convert PDF to Excel like a pro, for example, you can use Cogniview’s fast converter tool to take the manual effort out of it. It’s not just Cogniview either – a whole raft of third parties have created solutions to the things people do with the Office environment, and businesses are used to being able to find solutions to anything involving Office with a quick search (ironically, on Google).
Brand Association
When you think of search, you undoubtedly think of Google. Microsoft may have tried their best with Bing, putting a lot of money into advertising campaigns to promote their search engine, however people only really tend to use Bing in situations where they are forced to, like for translations on Facebook or when browsing on an Xbox console. When you think of Microsoft, two things immediately come to mind: Windows, and MS Office.
This is important, as while Microsoft have legions of products, it is things like a new release of Windows or Office that get all the hype. Google cannot, at least not in the short or medium term, remove the associations we have between the Office brand and working with things like word processors, spreadsheets and slideshow presentations. Companies will be reluctant to move away from the Office brand because it is so familiar and trusted. When they need to hire people, they know they will have no trouble with applicants not knowing how to use their suite of choice efficiently. They also know the licensing models well, and tend to have relationships with other businesses who provide things like MS Office training for them.
Essentially, the investment and commitment a lot of companies have already made with MS Office will be one many will find it hard to back away from, especially in favor of a suite that isn’t actually better. With Office 365 offering all of the cloud benefits of Google, with the Microsoft branding and familiar interface, all that Google really has going for it is its price. While home users and small businesses may see that as a big thing, companies who already count MS Office as an overhead are less likely to be seduced by the fact Google’s apps are free, especially if it comes with a training overhead itself, or a lack of third party tools like Cogniview to boost productivity.
Author Bio
Ofir Sahar is an SEO genius, life hacker and world traveler. When he is not jumping to the freezing water of Antarctica, he’s also the Founder & Main Chef of SEO Link Building Service.