Burlingame, Calif. -
Google didn't spend all its time Thursday getting roughed up by investors over its click-fraud settlement. The company also added a word processor to its ever-growing arsenal of products, a move that takes its Web-based vision of the future and sticks it right in Microsoft boss Bill Gates' craw.
The company announced, via its blog, that it had acquired Upstartle, the company that developed Writely, a free Web-based word processor.
That announcement comes just days after Google accidentally posted notes about its plans to create an online storage system called Gdrive that would let users store the entire contents of their computers hard drives for free.
These two services could fit together at Google to give users a free place to work and a place to store that work online. Writely lets multiple users collaborate on documents, so Googles version of Writely, which is currently closed to new sign-ups, will likely offer that feature.
Google already offers Gmail, an e-mail program with upward of 2.6 gigabytes of storage space, and Web publishing in the form of blogs via Blogspot and homepages via the new Googlepages. A calendar program, tentatively called CL2, is also in the works. This week, the blog Techcrunch posted screenshots of CL2 that it had obtained from a Yahoo! employee who managed to join Googles beta testing program.
If Google manages to tie all of that together, it will have a suite of offerings that could threaten Microsoft's $11.5 billion Office line. And unlike Microsoft's offerings of packaged goods, Google's products are all Web-based, which can make them both cheaper and easier to update and manage.
Microsoft executives seem well aware of the challenge. Last year, under the direction of Chief Technology Officer Ray Ozzie, it ramped up its move into its own Web-based software. Microsoft currently offers a stripped-down online version of Office, which is heavy on Web publishing and customer relationship management features. Targeted at small and medium-sized businesses, prices range from free to $30 per month.
As recently as last fall, it seemed that the biggest potential for a Google Office suite was in the companys vague partnership with Sun Microsystems, which was supposed to promote OpenOffice.org, a free clone of Microsoft Office that runs on desktop computers. But with the Writely acquisition, Google seems to have decided that it would rather build on productivity software made for the Web than on desktop-based software. Other targets Google might look at if it wants to keep on acquiring Web-based companies include spreadsheet outfits NumSum and Numbler.
In the meantime, Microsoft isnt just defending its Office empire with Web-based Office software. Its also trying to fight back by going after Googles core search business via its MSN unit. Webmasters have noted that in recent weeks MSN robots, which search engines use to index information, have been more active than any other search engine, and this week Microsoft made its new search offering available to the public.
Google didn't spend all its time Thursday getting roughed up by investors over its click-fraud settlement. The company also added a word processor to its ever-growing arsenal of products, a move that takes its Web-based vision of the future and sticks it right in Microsoft boss Bill Gates' craw.
The company announced, via its blog, that it had acquired Upstartle, the company that developed Writely, a free Web-based word processor.
That announcement comes just days after Google accidentally posted notes about its plans to create an online storage system called Gdrive that would let users store the entire contents of their computers hard drives for free.
These two services could fit together at Google to give users a free place to work and a place to store that work online. Writely lets multiple users collaborate on documents, so Googles version of Writely, which is currently closed to new sign-ups, will likely offer that feature.
Google already offers Gmail, an e-mail program with upward of 2.6 gigabytes of storage space, and Web publishing in the form of blogs via Blogspot and homepages via the new Googlepages. A calendar program, tentatively called CL2, is also in the works. This week, the blog Techcrunch posted screenshots of CL2 that it had obtained from a Yahoo! employee who managed to join Googles beta testing program.
If Google manages to tie all of that together, it will have a suite of offerings that could threaten Microsoft's $11.5 billion Office line. And unlike Microsoft's offerings of packaged goods, Google's products are all Web-based, which can make them both cheaper and easier to update and manage.
Microsoft executives seem well aware of the challenge. Last year, under the direction of Chief Technology Officer Ray Ozzie, it ramped up its move into its own Web-based software. Microsoft currently offers a stripped-down online version of Office, which is heavy on Web publishing and customer relationship management features. Targeted at small and medium-sized businesses, prices range from free to $30 per month.
As recently as last fall, it seemed that the biggest potential for a Google Office suite was in the companys vague partnership with Sun Microsystems, which was supposed to promote OpenOffice.org, a free clone of Microsoft Office that runs on desktop computers. But with the Writely acquisition, Google seems to have decided that it would rather build on productivity software made for the Web than on desktop-based software. Other targets Google might look at if it wants to keep on acquiring Web-based companies include spreadsheet outfits NumSum and Numbler.
In the meantime, Microsoft isnt just defending its Office empire with Web-based Office software. Its also trying to fight back by going after Googles core search business via its MSN unit. Webmasters have noted that in recent weeks MSN robots, which search engines use to index information, have been more active than any other search engine, and this week Microsoft made its new search offering available to the public.
hostileintent:
Grey isn't your color. 