Microsoft launches Office 2010
By siliconindia   |   Wednesday, 12 May 2010, 18:43 IST
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Microsoft launches Office 2010
New York/San Francisco: To keep its grip on the business application market, Microsoft launches Office 2010, an updated version of its Office software on Wednesday, countering the challenge of free online alternatives from Google. The software company, with 500 million users, is upgrading its popular Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint applications, and rolling out its own online versions to keep up with the new class of mobile, web-connected users that have emerged since the last upgrade in 2006. With the updated version, Microsoft is expected to trumpet a list of improvements, such as editing photos in Word, using video in PowerPoint, collaborating on documents and managing e-mail conversations in new ways. Moreover, users can manipulate documents stored on remote servers from anywhere. Google Docs, an alternative from Goolge, are available over the Internet with no need to download software. They are free for personal users and $50-per-user per year for companies. After being launched about four years ago, Google Docs have picked up 25 million users, claims Google. But Microsoft faces more pressure in email and calendar programs, the area most amenable to online and mobile use, where Google already has a strong foothold. "Google has made a lot of inroads there. Microsoft is going to face pressure there over time. They are probably going to have to cut prices to some extent," said Toan Tran, an analyst at Morningstar. Microsoft's business division -- which gets 90 percent of its sales from Office -- averages around $2.8 billion profit per quarter. That is 47 percent of Microsoft's total profit so far this fiscal year, second only to Microsoft's core Windows franchise. Ordinary consumers get the chance to buy Office 2010 next month, at prices ranging from $119 to $499, depending on the level of sophistication.

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