Microsoft Office is under attack on all sides this week.
IBM made available today for free its Symphony suite of office applications – taking square aim at Microsoft Office, the Wall Street Journal reports. Symphony includes a word processor, spreadsheet and business presentation software. Symphony will also be bundled with new versions of Notes. Symphony is based on Open Office.
Meanwhile, Google also announced that it was adding a PowerPoint rival to its SaaS office suite. This fills the only hole Google had when competing with Microsoft Office/Outlook/Exchange as collaboration/business productivity suite.
Then Yahoo jumped into the game, too. It bought open-source collaboration software vendor Zimbra. Zimba’s flagship product, Collaboration Suite, includes a back-end server and a browser-based Ajax client that offers e-mail, contacts, calendar, VoIP and a text editor. It also develops software called Zimlets, which are small applications that provide integration of e-mail with third-party data sources.
Now, add to this the fact that Microsoft’s hands are being tied (or at least, the attempt is being made to tie its hands) by continued antitrust maneuvers. With the EU’s ruling this week and the California group (a group of states) push for antitrust oversight, Microsoft is going to need to come up with something other than its classic competitive move – bundling its technology into its OS.
All of this, though, is good for Microsoft, a big, strong, often smart company. People have been angered to the point of extremes over some of Microsoft’s business practices. More competition could force it to quit the hardball tactics and really compete on innovation, quality, fair pricing and the like.
Other posts from the Microsoft Subnet blog
