Microsoft vs. Google - The struggle of two concepts
The two largest software giants of the world have always been, as they say, "blood enemies" among the people. In business, they are called "direct competitors." And it's not about the banal competition for creating the best office suite or the fight between MSN and Google search engine. The point is in completely opposite ideologies: Microsoft promotes the concept that all user data will continue to be stored on their own computers, Google does everything in order to fully transfer user information to the Internet server. According to their version, in the future, the Internet will expand to the extent that only bare OS and Internet browser will be stored on the hard drives of home computers, and all work, including office documents, will be carried out from the Internet.
The last step in promoting this concept was the emergence of the resource docs.google.com, which has tools for processing text and spreadsheets, similar to Microsoft Word and Excel. And, as is clear from Gates' financial reports, sales of their products have dropped significantly - not least because of the new Google service. In the future, analysts expect a strong decline in the price of the MS Office package and a new aggravation in the gaining financial war: a couple of weeks ago, Google announced that it was working on the Google Gears package, which would allow the company to release offline versions of its office Internet applications.
However, cheaper products from Microsoft will not happen soon: at least in only 1.5-2 years. James Goodall, a senior analyst with the Info-Tech Research Group, agrees with this period in his numerous interviews and says that Microsoft in the future may also offer its customers to store corporate documents on their servers. It will happen no earlier than 2011-2012.
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By the way, the salt of the issue is not only in the two software giants. One way or another, the struggle of concepts will overwhelm all software makers. Translation of familiar programs online is already a massive trend in the industry. Even in ADOBE they stated their intention to master the new trend: a simplified version of Photoshop is about to appear on the web. It is not excluded that other leading software companies will acquire similar versions. I remember that a couple of years ago experts from Google put forward the idea that only the drivers would be stored on future desktops and laptops, and even the OS itself would be downloaded from the network. Then most IT analysts only made fun of this theory, today these statements do not seem ridiculous to anyone.
Google’s free tools are rapidly gaining popularity among Western home users, who, unlike most CIS residents, pay for software — the simplest products from Google are a good alternative to MS Word and MS Excel. So far, Microsoft is seeing this through its fingers: corporate users have always been their main customers.
However, what prevents them from adopting experience in the future? As Belarusian businessmen and specialists say, “the question is only in technology”. As Andrei Khrol, director of F1 Computers store-salon, told Onliner, “until the Internet, in spite of its seven-league steps, has reached the point where it can be said that using online programs would be convenient. In addition, most companies need more than just working on text and spreadsheets. Today we transmit rather large volumes of information within our local network that would be transmitted over the Internet for a very long time. Therefore, it’s too early to talk about the transition to storing information on external servers. And if in Europe and the USA a new concept can be adopted in some 5-7 years, then everything will come to us only in tens of years. We now have very poorly developed technologies of wireless Internet, and I need to have access to documents always - sometimes even when I rest in the forest. ” Almost all Belarusian businessmen expressed a similar point of view. One of them, however, expressed another problem with a similar way of storing data: “The key word here is security. Not a single really large company will entrust its databases, customer accounts and bookkeeping to third parties. And if there is a financial check? Unfortunately, in Belarus, as in the entire post-Soviet space, business is often dishonest, so it is simply not safe. Of course, you can hope so much for the honesty of the company that will store this information, but recently you heard a scandal: it turns out that the security services regularly checked the mailboxes of one of the Russian-language E-Mail services they needed! What then to speak about really confidential information ?! Our society is simply not mature enough to store important information with third parties, even if they are not interested in those who are not interested. ”
Interestingly, private users of Belarus perceived the question of the Onliner correspondent: “Are you ready to store all documents in Online?” Where with more interest than representatives of corporate interests. Promoter Nick Motorin admits that “in our team work is synchronized via the Internet. We use the services of Google (mail, chat, documents, analytics, etc.) and NetVibes. Take the same Gmail. If I used to use email clients and stored mail in my laptop, and I always carried a computer with me, now I have enough mobile phone with configured gprs - I need all the information already on the web. Many users will come to this soon. In addition, I am a regular customer of such services as Calendar, Google Reader, Documents and Tables. It is more convenient to store not only documents online, but also other types of information. A modern young man wants to be as mobile as possible and have access to any necessary material from anywhere. Behind this concept is the future. ”
Thus, it turns out that the more a person has a business, the more suspicious about storing their information on third-party servers. Western analysts come to the same conclusion. However, they are sure that mistrust is just a matter of time. Time will erase stereotypes and accelerate data transmission technology. Who knows, maybe in five years I would type this text right on the web?
The last step in promoting this concept was the emergence of the resource docs.google.com, which has tools for processing text and spreadsheets, similar to Microsoft Word and Excel. And, as is clear from Gates' financial reports, sales of their products have dropped significantly - not least because of the new Google service. In the future, analysts expect a strong decline in the price of the MS Office package and a new aggravation in the gaining financial war: a couple of weeks ago, Google announced that it was working on the Google Gears package, which would allow the company to release offline versions of its office Internet applications.
However, cheaper products from Microsoft will not happen soon: at least in only 1.5-2 years. James Goodall, a senior analyst with the Info-Tech Research Group, agrees with this period in his numerous interviews and says that Microsoft in the future may also offer its customers to store corporate documents on their servers. It will happen no earlier than 2011-2012.
')
By the way, the salt of the issue is not only in the two software giants. One way or another, the struggle of concepts will overwhelm all software makers. Translation of familiar programs online is already a massive trend in the industry. Even in ADOBE they stated their intention to master the new trend: a simplified version of Photoshop is about to appear on the web. It is not excluded that other leading software companies will acquire similar versions. I remember that a couple of years ago experts from Google put forward the idea that only the drivers would be stored on future desktops and laptops, and even the OS itself would be downloaded from the network. Then most IT analysts only made fun of this theory, today these statements do not seem ridiculous to anyone.
Google’s free tools are rapidly gaining popularity among Western home users, who, unlike most CIS residents, pay for software — the simplest products from Google are a good alternative to MS Word and MS Excel. So far, Microsoft is seeing this through its fingers: corporate users have always been their main customers.
However, what prevents them from adopting experience in the future? As Belarusian businessmen and specialists say, “the question is only in technology”. As Andrei Khrol, director of F1 Computers store-salon, told Onliner, “until the Internet, in spite of its seven-league steps, has reached the point where it can be said that using online programs would be convenient. In addition, most companies need more than just working on text and spreadsheets. Today we transmit rather large volumes of information within our local network that would be transmitted over the Internet for a very long time. Therefore, it’s too early to talk about the transition to storing information on external servers. And if in Europe and the USA a new concept can be adopted in some 5-7 years, then everything will come to us only in tens of years. We now have very poorly developed technologies of wireless Internet, and I need to have access to documents always - sometimes even when I rest in the forest. ” Almost all Belarusian businessmen expressed a similar point of view. One of them, however, expressed another problem with a similar way of storing data: “The key word here is security. Not a single really large company will entrust its databases, customer accounts and bookkeeping to third parties. And if there is a financial check? Unfortunately, in Belarus, as in the entire post-Soviet space, business is often dishonest, so it is simply not safe. Of course, you can hope so much for the honesty of the company that will store this information, but recently you heard a scandal: it turns out that the security services regularly checked the mailboxes of one of the Russian-language E-Mail services they needed! What then to speak about really confidential information ?! Our society is simply not mature enough to store important information with third parties, even if they are not interested in those who are not interested. ”
Interestingly, private users of Belarus perceived the question of the Onliner correspondent: “Are you ready to store all documents in Online?” Where with more interest than representatives of corporate interests. Promoter Nick Motorin admits that “in our team work is synchronized via the Internet. We use the services of Google (mail, chat, documents, analytics, etc.) and NetVibes. Take the same Gmail. If I used to use email clients and stored mail in my laptop, and I always carried a computer with me, now I have enough mobile phone with configured gprs - I need all the information already on the web. Many users will come to this soon. In addition, I am a regular customer of such services as Calendar, Google Reader, Documents and Tables. It is more convenient to store not only documents online, but also other types of information. A modern young man wants to be as mobile as possible and have access to any necessary material from anywhere. Behind this concept is the future. ”
Thus, it turns out that the more a person has a business, the more suspicious about storing their information on third-party servers. Western analysts come to the same conclusion. However, they are sure that mistrust is just a matter of time. Time will erase stereotypes and accelerate data transmission technology. Who knows, maybe in five years I would type this text right on the web?
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/12218/
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