Today Microsoft launched a hosted Exchange solution to counter Google Apps. Is this a slow and steady response to the Google threat?
When the world’s biggest company launches a subscription based online/offline software of it’s core product you that Subscription based software and Software as a Service has arrived into the mainstream. Microsoft today launched a subscription based service of Microsoft Office Home and Student edition. It will be available starting Mid-July and is mainly targeted towards the lower end of the consumer spectrum. Clearly Microsoft still wants it’s enterprise customers locked into it’s desktop software. Understandably so, enterprise customers will be more apprehensive about sending their data into the ‘cloud’ without secure and reliable storage channels.
However with this new service Microsoft is clearly targeting the SOHO and casual users community which might be looking at Google Docs or Zoho type of services for their daily word processing and spreadsheet needs. It remains to be seen whether this experiment by Microsoft will succeed and if they will ultimately port the Professional edition also onto the SaaS platform.
27th June is Bill Gate’s last day at Microsoft. I think Microsoft is what it is today because of Bill Gate’s vision. He was a visionary and he knew right in the beginning that the PC industry is where growth lies. People blame him for copying other people’s ideas and crushing competitors. Although some of it might be true, ultimately innovation does not matter if it is not brought to the market quicker than others in a form that people can use it(Xerox are you listening?).
I remember the End of an Era Friends episode when Rachael is moving out of Monica’s apartment and it belatedly dawns upon Rachael that she will no longer be living with Monica and share the good times. It’s the same case with Microsoft. Only once Bill leaves will we see if there is any impact of him leaving and how the company is run by Steve’s without Bill’s advice and constant support. Technically Bill is still going to spend around 2 hours a week with the Search and Live teams, so he is still hanging around but it will never be the same again.
