Death Match continues…

Microsoft office faces a tag team of Google docs, open office, and a new contender LIVE DOCUMENTS

The war never seems to end for Microsoft. It looks like a lone warrior in the battle where the enemy keeps coming and coming. It kills one and another rises just behind him. Microsoft office suite is facing some stiff competition. It all started with Sun Microsystems' open office. Then came open document format by Adobe. This war heated with the entry of Google with Google docs. On top of that companies keep finding vulnerabilities in the Microsoft suite.

Security vendor Symantec noticed a vulnerability crop up on Wednesday, just one day after the patches were released, that can crash every single version of Word except the newest version, Word 2007. The vulnerability comes in the form of a Word document and includes shell code with three pieces of malware attached to it.

- tech.blorge.com

On the Google front they keep improving Google docs competitively . Latest has been adding 12 new languages. To compete this microsoft came up with Office Live. The Microsoft Office Live Works, which is set to be launched is aimed more at consumers and small business users (rather than corporations) who want access to their documents online from any computer using any browser. Office Live Works operates as a stand alone application separate from the desktop Office application.

Office Live Work’s has the following three key features:

• Access Anywhere - freely store up to 1,000 Office documents which can be accessed in any computer using any browser.
• Share with others - collaborate with your colleagues, networks and friends and control how much they can do with your documents.
• Works directly with Microsoft Office - open and save files directly from Word, Excel and Powerpoint, synchronize contact, task, and event list with Outlook.

From the looks of it, Microsoft Office Live Works could very well give Google Docs a run for its money. Now there's a new competitor in the boxing ring Sabeer Bhatia's latest venture Live Documents. So far, Live Documents includes equivalents to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Besides offering standalone online Flash-based versions of the applications, InstaColl also offers downloadable applications which “wrap around” Microsoft’s applications to convert them to Live Documents clients.

[So what's Live Document about?

Uses RIA technologies such as Flash and Flex.Flash-based user interface that offers a richer user experience.

Allows users to view and edit documents within any common browser on any operating system from anywhere.

And the best part ->Live Documents is available as a optional desktop client application that wraps around Microsoft Office and embeds collaborative capabilities into these hitherto standalone software applications - Live Documents converts Microsoft Office applications from static standalone software to smart clients that are connected to the Internet and facilitate in-context document sharing and management without requiring users to give up their familiar user interfaces.]

- news.digitaltrends.com

Related articles:

Death Match

GOOGLE: New milestone

According to the annual Forbes Magazine list of the richest Americans released and in Top 5 Americans two new entrants tied for the 5th position: Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google. Worth an estimated $18.5 each, to reach the top of richest Americans ladder, they will have to maintain the same pace, energy and vision toward business because Mr. Gates is nearly 3 times richer than both of them.

Top 5 Richest Americans:

1 - Bill Gates, $59 billion

2 - Warren Buffett, $52 billion

3 - Sheldon Adelson, $28 billion

4 - Larry Ellison, $26 billion

5 - Sergey Brin & Larry Page, $18.5 billion each

Another interesting news: few days back google announced its quarterly financial report & has hit a new all-time high and surpassed the $200 billion mark in terms of market value. For some perspective, that is more than News Corp, Disney, Viacom, and CBS are worth … combined. The number makes Google the second largest technology company in the world, trailing only Microsoft.

On the flip side, competitors like Yahoo, with a market value of only around $40 billion, can’t be nearly as aggressive in buying other companies. It’s a huge advantage for Google, and I expect them to continue to exploit so long as their shares remain red hot.

It’s a company following attacker’s strategy by acquiring all possible business in IT and best of its technology is perfect integration of every thing with other like gmail, orkut, g-talk, picasa & web picasa, spreadsheet, google analytics & blog…

This small fish which born in 1998 going to become a whale and will eat all small & big water (IT) players soon.

Death Match

Round 1:

The big daddy of search Google arrives and knocks out every search engine existing on the planet including Microsoft's MSN search and Yahoo!

Points: MS - 2 Google – 10

Round 2:

Google launches Gmail, a free email service with huge storage space. MS jabs back boosting free memory in Hotmail but the damage is inevitable.

Points: MS - 4 Google – 6

Round 3: Google jumps the advertisement bandwagon, which becomes its cash cow by bundling ads with search results.

Points: MS - 1 Google – 7

Round 4:

MS takes Google to court claiming that it is confusing users by showing search results with ads. MS makes Yahoo its ally with an ad delivery contract to counter Google's Ad sense.

Points: MS - 7 Google – 2

Round 5:

Google hires Kai-Fu Lee, VP Microsoft.

The battle for Kai-Fu Lee, underlines a growing animosity between the two companies, with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer allegedly pitching such a fit after losing one executive in 2004 that he threatened to "kill Google" over the continued poaching of Redmond's top brass, even flinging furniture and dropping more F-bombs than I've heard tell in awhile.<http://www.aurorawdc.com>

MS strikes back and sues Google and wins the case.

Points: MS - 9 Google – 1

Round 6:

Google hits with ultimate thunderbolt, partners with Sun Microsystems in producing Open Office. This move ends MS's tyranny in office application software. MS runs scared of the Open Document format started by Adobe.

Points: MS - 0 Google – 7

Round 7:

As the noose tightens around MS it strikes with its old war trick - copying the technology (a rabbit punch), with which it had defeated many competitors like revolutionary Apple. Microsoft enters enemy's backyard search! Google gives a counter punch building a "patent fence" around search and takes on Yahoo first, then leveraging cutting edge user interface design technologies present in Google Maps (which could challenge PowerPoint) and Gmail (the RTF technology already offering about 70 percent of the functionality behind Word). Deployed on the "Googleplex" platform Google has created as its supercomputer-like infrastructure, calling into question Microsoft's very necessity isn't far around the corner.

Points: MS - 6 Google – 7

Round 8:

Google moved further into Microsoft territory with the Deskbar, a search box that sits on the Windows OS.

Points: MS - 4 Google - 6

Future

Round 9:

Search is still an infant. Google is still a web page. Don't get deceived by that, it will be shear ignorance. MS knows that and its going crazy fighting Google. Why? What's the obsession for?

Because it knows search is a key component in the future of computing. Microsoft's next-generation OS, Longhorn (first OS to be coded in .Net framework and c#), is conceived as a unified interface for a PC, its local network, and the Web. For it to work, Longhorn needs a sleek search utility. If Microsoft can't buy Google, it'll resort to its time-tested strategy: copy the best technology and integrate it on the desktop. What could MS do with longhorn? It could engrain SEARCH within the OS! Bypassing the competitor altogether and the almighty OS reigns…

Result: MS knocks out Google!

Round 10:

Google has becomes more than a business driven by search. Although it’s search box is a phone book and a dictionary. It can check stock prices, provide news, track FedEx packages, perform metric conversions, locate airplanes, offer street maps, and supply weather conditions. It'll search retail outlets by zip code and, with Froogle, scour the Web for products. In short, Google execs are innovating like they're running from someone. "People at Google don't talk about it, but it's pretty evident," says Danny Sullivan, editor of Search Engine Watch. "Microsoft's making a move into search that's equal to its move into Web browsers. That's got to make you nervous." It becomes the Walmart of the hi tech industry churning out newer and innovative product. Transforming R&D into an assembly line.

Result: Google knocks out MS!

For all their differences, the two companies have a lot in common. Microsoft looks at Google and sees its own past, full of promise. Google looks at Microsoft and sees the future - a company that dominates the tech landscape.