A little over a year ago I blogged some ideas about a Google Office product. Well, they're doing it piecemeal, but the suite appears to be taking shape.

Writely                        ~= Word

Google Spreadsheets  ~= Excel & Access

Gmail                         ~= Outlook

Google Page Creator  ~= Powerpoint / Frontpage

This is a small problem for Microsoft right now, but it's a real problem 10 years from now.  When I entered the workforce 13 years ago, Word Perfect was the norm, and Microsoft Word was starting to gain some ground.  It wasn't the norm because the features were great, it was the norm because people needed to create documents.  WYSIWYG editors took hold as technology caught up, and word processor has stayed pretty much the same ever since, with most updates seeming to only change the UI to match the Windows flavor of the day.

The real problem is that web-based word processors, spreadsheets, etc. are good enough.  Beyond good enough, they offer data protection, collaboration, and the possibility to integrate with search in ways that make research easier and more productive.

In response to the Google announcement, Robert Scoble Wrote 'If I was a Microsoft product manager over on Office I'd send every blogger a free copy and say "please compare to Google Office." I'd love to see the blog hype if we did that.'  I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but I've tried both, and nothing in the Office Beta has made me a believer yet.  In a bit of a self-fulfilling prophesy, I really don't like the ribbon bar.  I'm sure it's great, but if there was a compatibility mode, I'd turn it on right now.  I like knowing where things are.  That consistency has kept me from really giving competitors like OpenOffice.org a fair shakedown.  By making such drastic changes to Office, you've lowered my perceived cost to switch. 

I'd wager that 95% of the people who use office don't use 95% of the features (I know, the ribbon bar is supposed to address the usage models, I say blah...).  Office has been good enough for most of us since Office 95.  I'm sure there are power-users who will fawn over the new formatting options, but they aren't going to pay the bills.  Students, and this is Microsoft's biggest problem, Students are going to think Writely and Google Spreadsheets are good enough for writing papers & analyzing lab data.  Entire colleges might decide to save their student's some licensing costs (to offset skyrocketing tuition) by standardizing on a Google Office Suite.  The "My computer crashed" late-paper excuse disappears, since the data is stored in the ether, across multiply-redundant Google data centers.  (Aside: Imagine how easy it would be for Google to mine the data for plagiarism. Bonus reason for school administrators to get onboard...)  These students will graduate comfortable and confident with how Google handles their data.  After graduating, these students will work their way up into management, get advanced degrees, and eventually, they'll be deciding how to manage companies' data, and Google will now seem to be a reasonable option.

Like I said, the clock is ticking on the desktop office suite as a cash cow...

Tuesday, June 06, 2006 9:32:29 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [0]  Google | Microsoft

I used to know what Google stood for. The brand was so clear, that the company name even turned into a verb that means “To Search”. No longer. Google could mean search, email, instant message, book search, rss reader, the list goes on and on.

Whenever a company stumbles into a really popular brand, they go through stages. The first involves building the brand, making sure that customers know what to expect. The next is to protect the brand. Here a company rejects uses of the brand that don’t meet the original brand image. After a while, companies start viewing the brand as an asset to be exploited. That is where Google appears to be now. I’ve even stopped paying attention to their never-ending stream of beta service releases. I don’t know what Google stands for anymore.

Microsoft, in their apparent desire to “beat Google at something” has taken the fast track to brand dilution with their Live.com services. Live.com meant something when it was just and RSS enabled portal. I was still on board when they decided to bring search, mail, and IM under the header too, but a recent flurry of Live.com announcements has left me wondering “What does Live.com really stand for?” I thought Microsoft would have known better after they all but buried the .Net brand, but they are making the same mistakes again.

If you have a brand that means something to consumers, the worst thing you can do is attempt to leverage the brand for something that doesn’t mesh with the original image. This erodes the understanding and trust that your customers have in your brand.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006 7:35:27 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [0]  Business | Google | Marketing | Microsoft

This morning one of my PCs had a little pop-up balloon asking for permission to download an update.  This is the computer that my wife normally uses and I rarely use it except to check it for updates. The program that wanted to update was Sun's Java runtime.  I figured this was probably a good idea so I told it to go ahead.

Where's the evil?  The update wizard tried to sneak in an installation of the Google Toolbar.  If you accept the default options, and just click "Next" through the wizard, you get the Google toolbar installed along with the Java runtime update.  The Google toolbar has absolutely nothing to do with keeping my Java runtime up to date, but for some reason, they try to sneak it in.  I dislike bundling in general, but I really dislike it when the default behavior of programs is to bundle.  I didn't like it when the MSN Messenger defaulted to change my homepage and search settings, and I especially don't like it when software "updates" are used to sneak software onto my machine.

Thankfully (I guess...) my wife never updates her machine.  She's totally immune to Windows Update pop-ups, or even the Onecare beta's yellow or even red icons.  I say thankfully because if she had run the update, I'm almost certain that she would've next-clicked her way through the defaults, and then she would have been complaining that her IE window was getting cluttered by the toolbar.

Companies need to remember that for most folks, Sneaky == Evil.  Every time you gain a user through sneaky bundling, you lose some consumer trust.  Google is in a tight spot because a great deal of their business value, their market value even, is based on users trusting them with personal information.  Without a high level of consumer trust, Google is just another advertising platform serving up irrelevant ads.

How could this be better?  If you must bundle unrelated software, require explicit and obvious consent.  A pre-checked box in the middle of an update wizard is not explicit and obvious.  Better yet, toss out the bundling, and win customers based on the merits of your product. 

Saturday, February 04, 2006 3:40:10 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [0]  Business | Google

I have to admit, I'm offering an opinion without having ever tried the product.  Granted, I have tried several different components of the product at different times, but still, this is more an opinion than a review.

Google Pack offers users an easy way to add a bunch of what Google considers "essential" software to your PC.  This includes antivirus, the Firefox browser, Adobe Reader (Acrobat for the old-school folks), Google Earth, Picassa, Google Desktop Search, the list goes on.  Honestly, the bundling creeps me out.  I've been hit with so many "Would you like the Google Toolbar with that" installation experiences lately, that I'm feeling a bit Anti-Google.  I still think they've done a great job with many of their products (Search, maps.google.com, gmail), but the business practices are starting to worry me.

Why is a coalition of bundling between Microsoft's competitors a good thing for Microsoft?  Because it shows that they realy don't hold a true monopoly on the computing market.  Google is showing Microsoft, the DOJ, and the public that it is possible to compete with Microsoft in the software market.  All they need is a couple of OEM's to pick up Google pack, and Microsoft can take that to their DOJ reps as proof that the playing field is fair.

An additional benefit for Microsoft is that this brings some competitive pressure.  Dare Obasanjo points out that Microsoft often does their best work when they have a valid competitor to focus their efforts against.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006 5:22:45 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [0]  Google | Microsoft

In a previous post, I pointed out that having multiple Hotmail accounts is a bit of a pain.  This lead me to think about all the places we have some level of lock-in in our online life.  Getting my email out of my Gmail requires clunky setup of POP email.  Can I get that email into my new Hotmail account (rick@this-domain) ?  Not right now because I don't have enough space, and I'm not certain if I can setup Hotmail to retrieve POP.  I could setup Outlook express with a POP connection to Gmail, and a Webdav to Hotmail, and then...  We've already gone way past what a "normal user" is going to be willing to do. 

Here's what I propose.  Hotmail, (MSN, Live.com, whoever you are now) could add an option to import Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, and any other service that has a user-base that Hotmail would like to have for its own.  They could make use of published API's where possible, and use POP otherwise.  The kicker is, I want a wizard that everybody's brother, sister, and grandma can use.  Just require a username & password.  Your servers can do the rest. 

Does this sound a little one-sided?  It does so far.  And Google, etc, could disrupt this functionality by changing APIs, blocking the Hotmail servers from using POP, many different ways.  How do you guard against this?  Provide open easy methods for people to transition _away_ from your service as well.  That way, if Yahoo! shuts you down, you can say: We're providing a way for users to take their data with them, if you don't do the same, you are mistreating your customers, and furthermore if you are disrupting their efforts to retrieve their own data, you are abusing your users.

What would be a good way to share this data back out?  Maybe Microsoft's new SSE for RSS.  In the end, I can invision a utopia where I have an SSE link between my GMail and my various Hotmail accounts.  All of my email is in every account, and I can use whichever interface happens to be better this month.  All of my contacts sync back and forth.  Unread/Status information flows quickly and easily from one service to the other.  Consumers are happy because they have choice, and the services can compete on thier merits.  Maybe let me apply a filter to the SSE links too, so I'm in control of what information gets passed to each service.  Control & choices == good for consumers == happy consumers.

This same idea applies to RSS.  I know I can export/import opml with most services, but in my mind that doesn't pass the "normal user" test either.  just let me build SSE links between the various clients.  It'll make me a happy customer.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 6:36:25 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [0]  Google | Microsoft | MSN

Sweet.   I've been toying with the idea of giving up my gmail account and just going with an email address on one of my own domains, but I didn't want to have to worry about spam catching, remote access, or learning how to efficiently use the webmail interface that my hosting providers uses.  I've already signed up my family domain and blobservations.net.  I wasn't previously using any accounts on these domains, so I don't mind expirementing with them on a new service.  I'm expecting gmail to have this functionality soon as well, but I've recently become disenchanted with the gmail experience.  It's still feels too "beta" for as long as it's been out, and the occasional service outages come at inconvenient times.

So far I've got some gripes/wishes with domains.live.com (the mail component.  I'm guessing they'll be hosting other stuff under this moniker given the generic name).

The first account I signed up, I activated before going to accountservices.msn.com and setting a country.  This account ended up with a 2MB space limit.  Not cool.  I tried resetting the country at accountservices, but it was still at 2MB.  It may have changed if I was patient, but I tried deleting & recreating the account only to find out that there's a waiting period to use a previously used account.  This is a pain.  And the other account that I set the country properly first ended up with a 25MB space limit.  In the current landscape of multi-gig mailboxes, Hotmail should just suck it up and keep pace.  I know, it's hard to scale when you're as big as Hotmail, but seriously, at least get your guinea pigs up to 1 Gigabyte from the start!  (We won't really use that much space, we just like to know it's there!  It's marketing, not technology!)

These new accounts are adding to my passport account soup.  I think I'm up to about 6 accounts that I actually still care about!  I'd love some mechanism to merge passport accounts, or at least let me open all my Hotmail accounts under one login with a unified interface. 

That's it for now.  I've still got lots of opinions about the classic Hotmail interface, but many are probably already addressed by the Kahuna / mail.live.com beta.  If someone were nice enough to hook me up with a beta invite on that front, I'll gladly share my opinions!  (just use the contact link on this blog ;-) )

Friday, November 18, 2005 8:00:19 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [1]  Google | Microsoft | MSN

I was going to write a post about Google's business model for hosted services, but Joe Wilcox at the Microsoft Monitor Weblog beat me to it.  In his post Google: It's not about search, Joe outlines how it's about information lock-in.  I can't say it any better than Joe did, so I'll just encourage you to go read his post.  Joe's explaination applies to pretty much everything Google is currently doing, and to most of the rumors about what they might be doing in the future.  It's not about advertising, it's about control of the market.

Monday, October 10, 2005 7:22:15 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [0]  Google

The big announcement from today was nothing but fluff, in my humble opinion.  Basically, Google and sun are going to play nice, and the end result is that user's downloads of various Google and Sun products are going to be bloated by bundling.

This doesn't mean that Microsoft has nothing to worry about.  In the long view, if these companies really do learn to play nice together, it could spell trouble for the folks in Redmond.  Google appears to be sporadically rolling out free WiFi.  Sun's CEO Scott McNealy has previously stated that he believed that computers in the future will be free.  When you bring Sun's and Google's various strengths and capabilities together, it could be a pretty daunting scene for MSFT (the company and the stock).  Google is buying up bandwidth and grid computing capabilities, and rolling out a WiFi last-mile.  Sun has some interesting technology with their Sunray thin clients.  Imagine that instead of paying a service fee (or software licenses), and buying hardware, you just sign-up and receive a smartcard in the mail.  You can use the smartcard anywhere there's a compatible Google/Sunray client.  You plug it in and instantly, you have all of your email, all of your documents, and all of your authorized programs.  The Google/Sun alliance may even throw in a free Wifi laptop to make it easier for customers to hook in.

Are Sun and Google going to provide this service out of the goodness of their hearts?  Of course not.  In a future post, I'll look at the business case for such a project.  Stay tuned!

Wednesday, October 05, 2005 5:55:03 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [0]  Consumer | Google | Microsoft | Technology

A while back, I asked the question "What if Google decided to release an office productivity suite?", and some folks are speculating that just such an announcement will be made today.  While that's certainly a possibility, I'm going to put my money on some sort of combined Google / Sunray thin-client solution, possibly with Sun's OpenOffice as an included productivity tool. 

Tuesday, October 04, 2005 5:09:09 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [0]  Google | Technology

Google has launched a Blog Search Engine (From DownloadSquad). 

It fairs pretty will for my favorite vanity searches:

Blobservations and Hallihan

Actually, I'm not being quite fair, it does awesome on those searches.  I'm pretty familiar with what those searches provide on Pubsub, Technorati, and the normal Google Search and MSN Search.  And it's fast...  Two ways.  It had a nine hour old blog post as my first result, so it's updating fairly quickly, and the UI is lightning fast.  No perceived wait (although I'm sure it's measurable).

This is Google's biggest advantage over MSN search.  Google has that perceived wait down to nothing.

While Google is late to the party on blog search, they have put together a quality offering that I'm sure will become many folks engine of choice for blog searching.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 4:57:02 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [0]  Blogging | Google | Search

My initial impression: "Yawn...."

You can download the software at http://talk.google.com.  The one interesting angle I can see is the voice chat, but I don't think that will get much exposure unless people really start using Google Talk as their primary IM client.  The whole voice-chat thing always suffers from poor quality audio input/output on "typical users'" machines, so I'm wondering if that feature will really get any traction.  Aside from that, the integration with Gmail is nice, but it doesn't give me a whole lot more functionality than the Gmail notifier did.

One more IM on the market...

Wednesday, August 24, 2005 5:09:07 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [0]  Google

I have a theory on why Microsoft acquired Groove Networks, and it's all about Google.

What if Google decided to release an office productivity suite?  What if they took it a step further and made it an internet-accessible sharepoint clone, with online document editing, spreadsheets, presentations, project planning, and collaboration.   Here's the disruptive kicker:  What of Google's suite of tools was a "good enough" replacement for Microsoft Office?  These tools might not be as full-featured as their Microsoft Office counterparts (when was the last time you heard someone praise Word for being so full-featured?) but what if they're good enough, and free?  Google could follow their common practice of generating revenue with unobtrusive relevant ad overlays, and give this to consumers for free.  The only price is that you check your privacy at the door.

This could mean big trouble for the Microsoft Office cash cow.  People still use Office 95, and even Office 6.0 when they can get away with it. Office has been good enough for quite a while.

My bet is that Microsoft picked up Groove to try to compete better in the online collaborative workspace environment.  Whether they can integrate the technology into a compelling platform to compete with Google is a story for another day.

Update: InformationWeek has some similar thoughts in this article: http://blog.informationweek.com/windows/archives/002914.html

Thursday, May 26, 2005 5:08:46 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)      Comments [0]  Google | Microsoft