Microsoft May Be Using Facebook as a Trojan Horse for Office
On Nov. 15, Facebook finally launched "Project Titan," a unified messaging system that the company says will allow users conflate email, SMS and chat into one service. The new "Facebook Messages" system has an odd accessory: it allows users to open Microsoft (MSFT) Office documents on the Web.
It doesn't take a prognosticator to realize that if you build an email system, you'll need to support some email attachments using cloud services. Google (GOOG) has made this a no-brainer: when you get a document in Gmail, you can open it and edit it in Google Docs with one click. You can also play YouTube videos inside Gmail, or listen to audio attachments.
Facebook Messages allows attachments, too. Yet the only kind it chose to support -- the only kind of attachment the system makes extra-easy to open -- is the mundane Microsoft Office document.
Facebook isn't (yet) a "work" tool for most people, and if it is, it's not a work tool that would ever replace email. So why did Facebook focus on supporting Office documents instead of MP3s, Flash videos, graphics, or any other type of popular files?
Microsoft is driving this bus
The answer may have more to do with Microsoft's priorities than Facebook's. Outside of its Facebook collaboration, Microsoft has been experimenting with Docs.com, which has been a kind of proving grounds for its cloud-based Office suite, Office365. Docs.com is now piloting its own Facebook integration, but only with Facebook Groups. The idea is that a group of friends can collaborate upon a single cloud-based document, just as on Google Docs. (The Docs.com/Facebook Groups collaboration is a separate but parallel project to the Facebook Messages/Office365 support. Confusing, yes.)
Ah, picture it: a bunch of Facebook friends editing a document together. It sounds great for the workplace at first, but there's something wrong: many older workers don't have Facebook, and those that do may want to keep their Facebook profiles separate from their professional image.
This is surely not lost on Microsoft or Facebook. But if the most powerful part about Office/Facebook working together is the Groups collaboration, and that's not right for enterprise workers, then this whole business may have another target audience: students working collaboratively on papers and projects. In this context, it makes a lot of sense: people in college "friend" each other at mere sighting, so the barrier of connection doesn't exist. It's a perfect collaborative setup for them.
And it's a college-student play to boot
It's also a perfect way for Microsoft to recover its reputation on college campuses, and get students used to using Microsoft branded Office documents. As it stands right now, Google Docs and Apple (AAPL) iWork are making it easy for anyone to create .doc formats (or .xls, or .ppt) without ever actually touching a Microsoft product. Redmond's formats are becoming generic, and they are probably not happy about it.
This would be a strategic coup for Microsoft if they didn't screw it up so badly by requiring students to pay up. Nope, it's not free: while anyone can view or download an Office attachment from Facebook, users can only edit the document online if they already have Microsoft Office software installed on their PC or Mac. It's a snake-eats-tail scenario: Don't have Office? You can't edit online. Can't edit online? It's because you never purchased Office. Which one of these services is supposed to be the "top of the funnel" that encourages users to pay up?
Microsoft is trying to build up its brand in a younger, Apple-loving demographic. That makes sense. But what's the sense in nickel-and-diming your most incessantly-broke customers? A better solution is probably "freemium," but it may take even more brand dilution before Microsoft is prepared to add that word to its vocabulary.
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