Microsoft has announced the launch of Office 365, its online office suite of products that provides easy-to-use, cloud-based management tools in a single location.
Essentially, Office365 the online version of office suite that integrates very well with desktop Office products (and is taking Google Enterprise suite head-on).
Given that Microsoft has the highest reach among desktop users, expect this to be an interesting play of pricing, under-cutting and importantly, innovation.
Office 365: Pricing
Having said that Office365 is a promising product, it won’t be wrong to say that Microsoft doesn’t really understand the online space (as much as they understand the desktop world).
Proof?
Look at Office 365 pricing – it’s far from being simple and concise. So many options for SMBs that they will eventually end up with a Google Apps offering. Also, the trial period is only 30 days.
App Store?
Google Apps has come up with an interesting model with Apps suite, i.e. of App store. A lot of businesses use Google’s Apps suite for free, but that doesn’t really mean that Google cannot monetizing them. Google monetizes them via its Enterprise App Store where thousands of enterprise companies sell their apps to customers.
Microsoft, it looks like wants to take the stand alone route and seems very confident about the desktop integration (just few days back, Google rolled out Cloud Connect plugin that syncs desktop office suite with your apps account).
Can Microsoft force its way to Enterprises? Is Microsoft’s online office a wolf in a sheep’s cloth (* ), after all office suite is Microsoft’s cash cow and online version will hurt the desktop version?
* – Microsoft also has enterprise business of selling office software and so far, no existing ‘enterprise’ player has made it big in their SAAS offering (look at Siebel/Ariba), as sales force is always willing to sell more of enterprise product than the SAAS product (lower margin/more queries related to viability/security etc).
What’s your opinion?
[...] Microsoft Office 365, the collaboration suite from Microsoft is now available in India too. [...]