The huge success of web apps have made me think about jumping into the cloud with Microsoft’s Office suite.
Back in the day, Office was really the only game in town. Today Google’s App services had taken the lead in the Web2.0 surge.
Apps provide great functionality and workgroup solutions for free. Many users will never push Excel to its limits. Google Apps which includes a powerful spreadsheet app is definitely good enough for many of us on a day to day basis.
Robert Scoble announced:
I’ve been watching my usage. In two months I’ve only used Outlook out of the entire Office Suite. Everything else? Moved onto online services.”
– 09:06 AM April 30, 2008 from web
Reflecting upon my own use of online apps from various vendors including beta testing SlideRocket, I would have to agree that now is the time to move away from Microsoft Office to Google Apps. Clearly makes more business sense than ever before.
Scoble may be predicting cloud computing solutions have really arrived because the amount of applications available today are more than powerful enough for a majority of globally connected citizens.
For those who see their roles within organizations as advanced users of MS Word and Excel, Microsoft Office is still a perfect fit for this slowly, smaller user base. But at some point Microsoft will be rolling out Office in the Cloud.
One reply on “Jumping into the cloud”
I think that there will be some hesitation for the mainstream user to move into the cloud, basically because of security concerns (founded or unfounded).