As long as they are modern and adhere to today’s standards, which is what you get from Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, IE 7, Firefox, Opera and others, you have a computer that is powerful enough to run a web based program, or software as a service.

For years there have been competitors to Microsoft Office, none of which have truly had the traction necessary to make any real dent in Office revenue. Sure, OpenOffice is at version 2.0 and has both consumer and corporate support.

Web based apps such as Zoho, ThinkFree Office and now Google Apps are shaping up to be better web based competitors than ever offered before.

But even though Microsoft Office has been available from Application Service Providers, or ASPs, companies that started off the software-as-a-service trend in the early’s 2000s, it has never taken off.

There are a number of reasons why. One is that Microsoft themselves weren’t offering the software as a service, but letting others take on the task. Another has been the slow rollout of truly fast broadband, which now, in 2007, is truly starting to change.

Another is that web based apps have taken their sweet time in maturing into usable products. Even the great Google had to purchase Writely to get a leg up on online wordprocessing and collaboration.

So, what we now have is Google Apps version 1.0, up against well over a decade of Microsoft Office suites. As an effective version 1.0 product, with previous versions really more of an evolving beta, it has certainly come out swinging, with both a free product and even a premium edition for businesses that will cost US $50 per year, offering 10Gb of storage instead of the 2Gb with the free alternative.

But compared with the rich environment that Microsoft offers right on your desktop with Office 2003 and especially Office 2007, the competition is still looking 10 years behind, as Microsoft has previously claimed.

Google Apps doesn’t change this, except on the collaboration and ease of deployment fronts. But it’s Google, and not only do they learn fast, they work fast, too. The launch date for Google Apps 2.0 is surely already on Google’s roadmap, along with a version 3.0 after that. Improvements will come thick and fast – and they’ll just become available the next time you log on to the web software – you won’t need to go out and buy any new versions.

There’s plenty of work to do before we get there, but the world of choice has just gotten much bigger thanks to Google. If this keeps Microsoft on their toes that much more, Google has done us all a massive favor, as Microsoft can no longer take its Office dominance for granted.

In the consumer quest for an ever better experience at an ever better price point, which is one that corporate are likely to share too, the arrival of Google Apps will make everyone work that much harder.

While those tasked with the extra work might not be so happy, speeding up everyone’s progress in creating ever better productivity tools is no bad thing at all.
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Alex Zaharov-Reutt  Browsers  Email  Google  Microsoft  Software  Software as a Service (Saas)  Web