Google Apps Premier - The Office Battle Is On

I agree. with the OASIS OpenDocument Format (ODF) being adopted not by just Google, but other online office suites (and even WordPerfect), Microsoft will need to fight its way back to relevance. Sure, MS Office is still (and will be for a few years) the de facto standard, but ODF liberates the users from the vendors — I only need the format (a universal open standard for office data), and now I'm free to choose any word processor or spreadsheet I want, rather than having to pay the "Microsoft tax" to access and read my files every time they change formats. Do you realize that Microsoft has changed its Office file format six of the last eight versions of Microsoft Office? No one is tethered to .doc compatibility anymore with ODF being omnipresent. China, Britain, much of Europe, South Africa, India, South America, and four US states are all adopting ODF as the format for their government documents, with good reasons.

I want stability. I want control. I want ODF. StarOffice/OpenOffice provides it. Google provides it. Microsoft does not (and no, their 'XML translator' doesn't really work). In an upcoming part 3 of a review of word processors I'm doing for DonationCoder.com, I'll have to mention this particular Goldblog prediction. Thanks.

Zaine,

I agree.. with open formats, online apps, more diversity in operating systems, and open source competitors continuing to commoditize the office suite space... I don't see how a monopoly could hold.

-Corey

I'd also throw in Zoho.com into the mix of contenders. They've got an impressive line up of web based apps and are getting some really good press lately. Will be interesting to see how they will evolve over the next year.