Office For Your Pocket
In New York City on Tuesday morning Microsoft unveiled the Office 365 cloud program. The longstanding Office suite program will now have an online format allowing for multiple devices to access applications such as Excel and Powerpoint.
This move is in reaction to Google Apps success in the corporate sector, which is currently seen as the more cost effective choice as a network solution as its web based nature facilitates ease of installing software and server management.
Chief Executive Steve Ballmer also highlighted the benefits of Office 365′s built-in conferencing tools could save small and medium sized businesses (the target demographic of Google Apps) money, ushering a new arena of competition between the technology giants.
Matt Cain, an analyst from research firm Gartner disagrees that this may lead to a dispute over market share, “While Office 365 does put Microsoft in mortal combat with Google, it is not really an existential threat for Google since Microsoft is essentially validating the model that Google pioneered with Google Apps. I would expect that Office 365 actually heightens interest in Google Apps.”
Though this announcement does hold stronger ramifications for the business sector the average consumer should take note. The next Windows phone and some other third party handsets could share in other exclusive Microsoft web based programming, giving increased food for thought for your next device purchase.
source:reuters.com
