ContentWith all the talk about Google acquiring online text-editor company Writely, why hasn’t anyone (that I’ve read) pointed out the obvious?
The Writely acquisition means that Google has not already developed their own “GOffice” suite.
You know, the one that everyone has been speculating about for three years. The Microsoft killer?
Nathan gets it right — Microsoft can, and will, do an online office productivity suite anyway. One that gives you the full power of Word (which, like it or not, is the standard), not some incompatible and feature-light clone. That’s not a knock on Writely, which is arguably a great online text editor, but please call it what it is.
I’m all for other companies giving Microsoft a run for the money — it’s better for consumers, after all — but people are making some seriously stupid bets right now in thinking that Microsoft is just sitting around daydreaming about the heydays of yesteryear. They are not taking this lying down, and someday they will knock some sense back into the overenthusiastic market.
Update: Take a minute to read the Make You Go Hmm post on this topic.
Update 2: And the Ajaxian post in which Dion writes that “many are saying that this shows their desire to get into the online office market, but maybe it is more about talent?” A comment to that post notices that Writely was written on .NET, which is certainly not the ideal platform for Google, though I personally wouldn’t mind seeing them putting some weight behind Mono as a consequence.
Update 3: Kid Mercury challenges me on this one by pointing out that “this is a textbook disruptive innovation” and makes the great point that “you simply can’t attack a market incumbent head on.” (Though to be fair, my main point was simply that Google hasn’t built GOffice yet.)