Google's Long Shot At Kicking Microsoft Off The Desktop

I recently described how Google's Wave, a collaboration tool based on the new HTML 5 standard, demonstrates the potential for Web applications to unglue Microsoft's hold on customers. My post quoted Gary Edwards, the former president of the Open Document Foundation, a first-hand witness to the failed attempt by Massachusetts to dump Microsoft and as experienced a hand at Microsoft-tilting as anyone I know.

Gary sent me a lengthy email response to that post, filled with technical details that are crucial to understanding the battle for the desktop that is currently unfolding, and kindly gave me permission to excerpt it here. His email touches on a pair of interconnected issues -- the battle between Google and Microsoft, and the odd relationship between Google, Apple and other smartphone vendors. Rather than try to shoehorn all of it into one post, I'll deal with them in two separate posts. This post deals with the Google-Microsoft battle, and the next on the Google/Apple smartphone issue.

Google and Microsoft are in a race for the heart of the desktop, pitting Google's ability to create an API (an interface used to connect disparate systems) that developers can use to tie newly enriched Web applications to desktop PCs, against Microsoft's ability to connect applications like Word to Web-based application servers running on its proprietary code. "Many people mistakenly think that HTML 5 is all about on-line/off-line capabilities. I think you hit the mark in your article pointing out that it's about Web application developers having direct (and Open) access to the same desktop computing processing power Microsoft is able to expose through their proprietary OS/Microsoft Office productivity environment," he wrote.

Microsoft has sought to create a two-tiered Web experience that it pawns off to customers (and trust-busters) as "choice": a bare-bones, standards-compliant format that anyone can use, but which offers an inferior experience, or a rich experience that requires developers write to proprietary standards, which is really no choice at all:

[Microsoft] leaves the choice of Open Web or Microsoft Web to end-users and developers -- knowing full well that integration and high end interoperability with legacy systems is the most cost effective way of advancing productivity.

The proprietary formats, protocols and interfaces are in place; Web Server side applications, services and systems are shipping; and the Office/Exchange/SharePoint/SQL Server stack has become an unstoppable juggernaut. The client/server integration trump card survived years of anti-trust efforts and open standards compliance demands.

Microsoft has lost the battle for the edge of the Web, and with it the all-important graphical document model that very much defines the richness of Web content.

But that's only half the race, as I stated at the outset. Google still has to tie this superior experience to the even more superior processing power of the desktop:

Carving out an x86 [PC] foothold is incredibly important, and must be done if Google apps and services are to be competitive with the next generation of Microsoft Web connected stuff. The appeal to developers has to be more than just compelling API alternatives.

Sometimes I wonder if Google has a grip on it all. Microsoft certainly does. And at this point, there is little room for mistakes by any of the major stakeholders.