I have a problem with Google fanboys speaking of how Google Reader is much faster on Google’s own browser, Chrome.
These are mostly the same people who complained that Microsoft Office works better with Microsoft Windows (vs. Mac)
BTW, I’m a Firefox user!
But I will give Chrome a fair chance on my desktop too, so there.
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While on the topic, there seems to be a standard approach used by Google to attack Microsoft’s properties. Office, Windows Mobile, IE, Servers
Start with a bare-bones application with the minimal and most popular features.
If it’s a browser, just make it browse and search.
If it’s an office productivity suite, give it the basic text editing and spreadsheeting functions, no macros, no serious-user type of features.
If it’s a server, just make it a search server appliance.
Then, once you have a foot in the door (or a Google App in the customers computer), add features.
This strategy works because Microsoft is too dumb to work like Adobe.
Adobe has tons of mature, feature-laden products, but they still always have a bare-bones, light-weight version of the same.
There is Adobe Photoshop, so they go ahead and launch Photoshop Elements (and even a web-based Photoshop)
There is Adobe Acrobat. But there is definitely the ever popular Adobe Reader.
With Microsoft, the closest they have come to doing this is by releasing Visual Studio Express. Too little, too late.
Listen up M$, unless you learn to keep customers within your product umbrella, they will defect. So go ahead, re-launch Microsoft Works (snicker, snicker) as MS Office Lite. Just rebundle Live Mail (formerly Outlook Express?), Windows Writer (as a lite-weight Word), simplistic Excel (without any of the heavy duty macro support, etc) and Access (again, light-weight).
And the Office Ribbon should be your weapon of choice.
It’s a great feature, but the only way anyone can try it is by purchasing the full version of Office or by being a student and getting it through their university.
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Would this work? Is there any evidence that it does work?
A Marwari or Gujarati businessman will teach, train and help a member of his family/extended-family/friend in his business (textiles, jewellery, plastics, whatever) and get them to open a shop very close to his own.
Often, people question this: After all, isn’t he just creating more competition, and that too with someone he has himself trained?
The reason behind this, as they all agree, is very simple.
The end-customer will buy the product. He is in the market to spend money.
If not from my shop, then from someone else’s shop.
I might as well have that business go to a cousin or friend of mine than to someone who doesn’t know me or care for me.
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Microsoft should rather have people defect to a free version of MS Office rather than Google Docs or Zoho or others. Atleast, this way, when that consumer has matured and wants a full-featured product, his first choice will be another Microsoft product.
14 Sep 2008 at 12:01 pm
I see two problems with your suggestion, Vinit.
One, Microsoft’s idea of a free product is something that’s several versions behind *and* crippled. They would never take the current version and strip it away of some features. Also, the “free” version is usually bundled with some other product. Examples? QBASIC/QuickBasic, Outlook Express/Outlook.
Two, you’re missing the point about Google Docs. Sure, you can’t do macros, you can’t have anything besides very basic formatting, but what you can do is collaborate with someone else without resorting to emailling a document back and forth. That’s important to a lot more people than macros.
As for the ribbon, yes, you’re going to flame me for this, but I don’t think it was a bright thing for them to have done. The one thing MS had going for them with Office was users’ familiarity. They utterly threw that away with Office ’07. I recall an accountant at my univ. getting all riled up about how things take her ten minutes that she used to do without even thinking about it. People like us tend to adapt rather quickly, but that’s not true for everyone.
Good to see you’re blogging again! Can I have some of those magic pills?
14 Sep 2008 at 4:49 pm
About the Ribbon: Didn’t think about people “unlike us”. Good catch.
But now that I do think of it, I feel that the Ribbon gives more people access to advanced features than it takes away.
(Number of people who will become better at Office+Ribbon is larger than the number of previous Office power-users who will bitch about the Ribbon)
I agree with M$’s idea of a free product. And thats what I am suggesting they look at and change. It *is* important for them to change for the new idea to work.
About Google Docs … well, Office 2007 comes with Groove (which they acquired and then just turned into a lite-version of SharePoint). Maybe they should use the Groove brand and make it a web application to compete with Google Docs and such.
In some ways, your argument about why Google Docs is good (better for the masses vs. for the Power Users) helps in my argument about the Ribbon.