Google Docs – Microsoft Office Killer By Next Year?

Google Docs is a remarkable product that provides some basic word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation capabilities. However, it is no match for the amazingly feature rich Microsoft Office suite. Good news is that Dave Girouard,  Google Enterprise President, is promising the addition of some 30 to 50 features by 2010 to take on Microsoft’s Office products.  Although, this will greatly help current Google Docs users, it is unlikely to move the needle in a big way, when it comes to winning existing MS-Office customers over.

Unless a near perfect integration can be achieved with existing MS-Office documents, it makes it nonsensical for a small segment of the users to switch over and be effective when conducting business with the rest of the world (i.e users using MS-Office).

So unless there is a mass exodus of users away from MS-Office, it would be difficult to attract wide number of customers to Google Docs. MS-Office in the meantime is engaged in integrating their MS-Office Suite with Sharepoint to enhance collaboration. This makes it less interesting for customers of MS-Office to switch.

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