Google is looking to lure 90 per cent of all Microsoft Office users to its Google Docs offering.
In an interview with
AllThingsD, Google vice president and head of
enterprise, Amit Singh (
pictured), said that Google will step up its pursuit of business users.
"Our goal is to get to the 90 per cent of users who don't need to have the most advanced features of Office," he said.
The remaining 10 per cent of "advanced" users will continue to use the desktop version, he suggested.
Singh went on to explain that although Google Docs already coexists
with Microsoft Office, the company is working hard to improve
integration.
"In Q3, if you import from Excel into Sheets, you won't be able to
tell the difference in Sheets. We know the gaps between our features and
[Microsoft's]. We're improving them week by week," he explained.
Singh claimed that
Microsoft's
approach to its cloud offering was to increase the cost to its
customers. He also claimed that Microsoft's overall market share had
declined.
"Enterprise is the place where they are holding on. People are
showing up at the office and bringing their own devices and expecting
their employers to support them. And with Windows RT, there is no
backward compatibility with all the apps. That's the first time that has
happened in Windows. The
Windows 8
move, they have done what they need to do, but it's fairly disruptive.
SkyDrive is coming. SharePoint needs to integrate with Yammer. So,
change is coming whether you like it or not," he said.
Google's rivalry with Microsoft in this area ramped up in 2012, with
both vying for enterprise customers with infrastructure-as-a-service
(IaaS) offerings in Compute Engine and Azure. Google had introduced
Drive to enable users to store documents in the cloud and in response,
Microsoft launched a similar service dubbed SkyDrive.
In late September, Google
said
that it would stop allowing users to save and export Google Docs files
created using older 1997 to 2003 Microsoft Office formats from October
2012.
But due to a backlash, it subsequently gave users until 31 January 2013 to make the transition.
Google then
announced
that Google Apps, which includes Docs, would no longer be offered free
to enterprise users. This suggested that users would have to make a
choice between paying for either Microsoft Office or Google Apps.
Most recently, Google
revealed
that it had no plans to develop dedicated apps for Windows 8 or Windows
Phone 8 for its business products such as Gmail or Drive – even though
the firm remains committed to improving and updating its iOS products.
