Richard MacManus at Read/WriteWeb points out that Google Docs is the clear leader in the web office market. He points to a Compete graph showing Google Docs as the clear leader.
Now it's time for me to state the obvious. Here are reasons Google will win the online office applications battle:
- Google is already winning the battle. Google Docs is well-integrated into other Google tools like Blogger. A "killer feature" for Google Apps that receives much press is that it's so easy to collaborate. It's possible to edit a document simultaneously - there's nothing quite like watching a document change in front of your eyes eve though the person editing it may be halfway around the world.
- Zoho gets a lot of press. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft ends up buying them. Probably a great app, but I'll stick with my loyalties to Google. Even if Zoho might be a bit better, it doesn't matter because Google will be better in the long-run. To date, I think Zoho's main advantage is the Powerpoint-like app, but I'm not really creating online presentations just yet.
- Yahoo owns Zimbra, but what have they done for me lately.
- Microsoft.... online? Live what? I just don't get the MSFT "live" concept. Perhaps the only thing that would make sense for Microsoft is a 100% integrated online/offline app, but then again this makes no sense because of redundancy. Or they could buy Yahoo and Zoho.
- What's ThinkFree? At the very least, it's nice that they're not charging people for their thoughts :)
Finally, not that the Compete graph matches almost perfectly with buzz on the applications (courtesy of Google Trends).
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