MoneyWatch Tech

Microsoft Unveils Office for the Cloud -- But Anchors it to the Desktop

By Erik Sherman

Updated on: May 12, 2010 / 3:00 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

Microsoft (MSFT) has finally unveiled Office Web Apps, its answer to Google (GOOG) Apps and Google Docs. And it's already clear that Microsoft has failed at the outset by trying to turn Web-based computing back into the desktop-centric model it knows so well.

Google was clearly spooked enough to launch a preemptive marketing strike yesterday: a suggestion on the corporate blog that companies should adopt Google Apps instead of an Office 2010 upgrade. It was a weak and ironically unnecessary response, given the hash Microsoft has made of its Web-app rollout.

Set aside the question of what users can do with Microsoft's cloud-based applications. The real issue is how complicated Microsoft has made it to access the Web apps in the first place. While the online applications are free for all but corporate users, getting to them requires downloading and installing the Office 2010 Beta -- that is, the very same bulky desktop application that Web users presumably want to sidestep. After that, users can run the Web apps -- in an ad-supported environment on Windows Live.

By contrast, if you want Google Docs, you just sign up for it; the application is free -- and free of the ads that Microsoft expects to run.

So much for Web access to cloud-based applications. Web Apps seemed intended to counter Google and drive adoption of Office 2010. What happens when the beta times out in October? No definitive answer yet, but my guess is that your Web Apps connection disappears (though Microsoft says you can download a new trial of Office 2010 or purchase the product at that point). If some version of Office 2010 isn't required, why require the beta installation in the first place? And, for heaven's sake, why limit browsers to Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari? Ignoring Google Chrome at this point is like sticking your head in the sand -- although Microsoft just can't seem to help itself.

On the corporate front, things don't seem much better. Companies can get access to Web apps -- just so long as they have volume licensing for Office 2010 and run Microsoft SharePoint Foundation 2010 or SharePoint Server 2010. You can get a trial of the Windows Live version of Office Web Apps, though that doesn't tell you anything about administering it under SharePoint.

Microsoft has this amazing ability to seem like it's caught on to something key in the market and then hold fast to all its old baggage. It's essentially insisting that the world change to suit the company. Given this approach, expect Google to keep carving into Microsoft's customer base and further erode the cash cow that Microsoft so desperately needs to maintain.

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Image: Flickr user SD Dirk, CC 2.0.