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Google Connect endangers Microsoft's 'Office' dominance
By siliconindia
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Tuesday, 23 November 2010, 23:57 IST
Bangalore: Google's foray into the cloud continues with the latest being the release of Google Cloud Connect beta for Microsoft Office. The web-based alternative lets users save the Office documents in Google Docs. This move from Google certainly is a cause of worry for Microsoft, as the latter is trying to increase its cloud assistance for Office workers.
Connect can be easily downloaded and deployed within 30 seconds. It's a free application for holders of Google online account. As the beta is launched to the testers, the appropriate release date to general public is not yet announced.
A small window of Connect is present in the main toolbar of an Office document. Any Word file, Excel spreadsheet or Powerpoint presentation can be send to your Google account. Multiple users can edit the Cloud Connect-enabled documents from within Office.
Connect not only allows users to share documents that can be edited by other users, but also syncs them for access from a variety of PC and mobile devices.
The concern for Microsoft grows as Connect is compatible with Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 versions. This implies that users accessing the Connect Web-version of a given Office document are doing so from within their familiar old Office interfaces.
Google Connect will be particularly useful to budgeted businesses that can now reap similar benefits with older versions of Office. This means that once Connect gets accepted, many businesses will get the option of not upgrading to Office 2010. This in turn will spell doom for Microsoft's cloud business as Office 2010 is the key player for their cloud performance.
Now it seems so that the tech giants are taking to new levels, this time to the cloud. The war cry is winning over the cloud and leveraging every bit of it. It is not known which side is going to win the battle, but yes the benefits will sure reward the people at large.
