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Five Reasons Google Docs Beats Office Live Workspace
1. Office Live Workspace Does Not Allow You To Create And Edit Documents Within A Web Page. Google Docs Does.
First and foremost, Office Live Workspace will not allow you to create and edit documents within a Web page. With Google Docs, you can easily create documents and edit them and even upload current Microsoft Word documents.
Just like all things related to Microsoft's Software-as-a-Service (SAAS) strategy, Office Live Workspace is a patched together, too little, too late offering compared to Google Docs. Question for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer: when will Microsoft deliver a SaaS offering that the channel can take advantage of that beats Google hands down? Right now the Google Docs environment is a great choice for VARs looking to build a pure Web 2.0 environment for small businesses and even entrepreneurial enterprise units looking to operate out of the purview of Big Brother IT. New fleet of foot businesses do not want to be hobbled by DOS 1.0 Microsoft view of the world. The biggest advantage Google has is that it does not bring all the excess legacy bloat and excess that comes with Microsoft Office.
2. Microsoft Office Live Workspace Has A 250 Mbyte 1,000 Average Office Documents Limitation. Google Docs Does Not.
Why does Microsoft insist on hobbling its SaaS offerings with technical limitations, while Google does everything in its power to provide an open-ended, flexible and easy to use Web 2.0 environment? Probably just one more example of the countless petty internal internecine battles that are keeping Microsoft from being a true Web 2.0 juggernaut.
The question is what happens when a business hits the 250 Mbyte 1,000 plus document limit? Note to Microsoft CTO Ray Ozzie regarding the 250 Mbyte limit: is this the message that you really want to send to Web 2.0-savvy VARs looking to build a complete, end-to-end online presence for entrepreneurial businesses? Don't worry, start uploading those documents. We'll deal with that 250 Mbyte limitation when we get there. Yeah right.
3. Microsoft's Office Live WorkSpace Is VaporWare. Google Docs is Real.
That's right. You read it right. Microsoft has once again countered a real LIVE product with a Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) Marketing Missive. That's right, you can set up your small business clients with Google Docs right now. No problem. You can sign up for Microsoft Office Live Workspace's preregistration list and even then you're not guaranteed access to the beta because Microsoft is limiting the beta release to what it calls a "limited number of people."
Limited indeed. That's Microsoft's motto when it comes to competing against Google and protecting its hefty annual software licensing revenue stream from Office and its other packaged hard wired products. What the limited means is that Microsoft has even managed to dilute the once grand beta process by vetting names so they can see how many Google employees or other competitors are signing up for the service and then refuse them to play in the Microsoft beta sandbox.
