The battle between Microsoft and Google for office cloud dominance reminds me of the clash of the Titans. Microsoft and its classic on-premises business model is like Gaia, the earth goddess, and Google with its disruptive lightening bolt, is like Zeus, a sky god and a next generation kind of god.
On June 28, Microsoft launched Office 365, a subscription cloud service that replaced its Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS). Office 365 was a direct response to Google Apps for Business, which has been luring companies away from on-premises e-mail and Office applications with promises of better collaboration, less cost and less headaches. Google claims that it has some 4 million businesses using Google Apps for Business. To be fair, this number pales compared to the millions using Office, which by some estimates totals 750 million people.
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