Microsoft takes on Google with Windows Live; Google Making Moves on the Desktop
Microsoft and Google continue to look more and more like each other. Microsoft is beefing up its online offerings with free cloud computing software, Windows Live. At the same time it looks like Google is recognizing that 100% online services aren't quite there yet. Google Pack, a suite of free client side tools, now includes Star Office, probably the best of the Microsoft Office alternatives. Google Gears is another indication that Google recognizes the need to sometimes work offline. I think these are good indicators of where we'll be soon with a good balance of local and online services and applications. The idea that there is a competition between software will be either all online or all local is wrong, we're going to have both. A big issues will be how data is managed in a hybrid client/service model.
Inexpensive and small computing devices, like the pending Asus eee and the iPhone, mean more mobile computing devices with excellent connectivity and low storage capacity, an ideal combo for software as a service. Microsoft knows this and is trying to get in the act according to the New York Times:
Windows Live services also underscore Microsoft’s desire to become the manager for a user’s data wherever it is located. Although they will not be included in the initial test release, the company’s recently announced SkyDrive online data storage service and its FolderShare service are being folded into Windows Live. SkyDrive currently gives test users 500 megabytes of free Internet storage, while FolderShare makes it possible to synchronize between multiple computers — including Apple’s Macintosh computers.
Still some users aren't going to trust confidential business information to a third party that scans email messages to target advertisements. Of course, if everyone strongly encrypted files before saving them to an online service then lost confidentiality would be less of a risk. Reliability and recovery are also concerns with software as a service models. We'll build trust in these models over time but for now a combined local client/service hybrid is the best for maximizing functionality and flexibility while minimizing risks.
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