With all the free offerings of web applications available right now on the web. I'm beginning to wonder whether there's even a need to buy software anymore. The biggest of these companies of course is Google.
Though they seem quite content to do it quietly, it looks like they are building an online alternative to Microsoft Office. Microsoft is aware of this and that is one of the reasons they are building their Windows Live platform.
How is Google doing this? They started with Gmail. Remember when most companies like Hotmail or Yahoo who were offering free e-mail only gave you free 250Mb of e-mail? Well, Google's Gmail upped the ante with free 1Gb of e-mail storage. It is now up to 2.5Gb and growing.
Google also bought the company Writely.com which makes a web based Word Processor. Then there's
Google Spreadsheets which is an online spreadsheet. So the two most used Microsoft Office programs are already available online for free. Then there's
Google Calendar which you can use to keep track of your day to day activities.
The good thing about it is that you can use them anywhere there's an Internet connection. The bad thing is, you need an Internet connection.
Basically, if you have high-speed Internet, then these programs are great to use. They're also OS agnostic, so it doesn't matter whether you're using Windows, Macs to Linux. As long as you have a brower that supports the latest technology, then you're ok.
Of course, Microsoft is not going to be left behind. They have their offering called
Windows Live and
Office Live. Although Windows Live is a bit different from Google's offering. Windows Live and Office live is more oriented towards collaboration. You can check out
Windows Live here and
Office Live here.
The new thing these companies are offering are hosted services. They both want enterprise customers so it only make sense if you can offer hosting services. If you have these companies using your search, office and collaboration program, why not host their domains as well.
Google's
Gmail for your domain will host your e-mail domain using Gmail. You have all the functionality of Gmail like using Google's search for your e-mail and intergration with Google Talk. You can use POP3 to download your e-mail with your favorite e-mail client like Outlook or Thunderbird and you can check your e-mail online as well. The only difference is that Gmail for your domain limits your space to 2Gb and it will not grow like Gmail. It is in beta right now and so far it's free, so I can't complain.
Office Live will also host your domain as well as other
services. It also offers 2Gb of e-mail space plus will host your website for free during and after beta. If you want more services like shared collaboration and online storage space, then there is a fee for that. Check out the services
here.
Microsoft currently doesn't offer online Word or Excel but I think they are in the works. They should be if they are to compete with Google.
So let's break down what they offer shall we? First of, Google. If you mainly use your computer for office work, here are the products you would normally use:
For your business hosting:
If you work involves graphics and editing simple pictures then you use the following:
If you want to share and collaborate:
Now all of these offerings you can choose whether or not to share with other users. So they can be as open or as private as you want. The nice thing about these is you can use your Google and Gmail account to log in. No need to remember different log in names and password.
All of these are also available for free (so far) and there are new developments coming out every day. If these developments keep up, soon we'll have all the applications that we use most of the time online and for free!
When they start making Google Database and Google Presentation, then watch out MS Office!
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