Google Office Ignores Sun StarOffice: Microsoft Killer Still MIA
Are all Microsoft Office comers but wimpy runnerups?
The blogosphere is gunning for a Microsoft Office killer, a Googley one. The Googleplex is not satisfying popular demand, however.
The inclusion of Sun Microsystem’s (not quite) Microsoft Office alternative–StarOffice–in Google Pack, for big example.
If Google Pack enhanced by StarOffice is the big, bad shot across the Microsoft Office bow that the blogosphere envisages it to be, Google would be singing its desktop office productivity praises, loud and proud, but Google is not doing so.
While Sun has declared its Google allegiance in a big way, Google has been taking an opposite approach by seemingly publicly ignoring its distribution deal with Sun.
Google typically contributes to joint press releases for publicly announced corporate partnerships with CEO Eric Schmidt often personally extolling the projected “win-wins” of Google partnerships.
Sun is splashing a StarOffice Google deal announcement across its homepage; The press release is a unilateral one though, not a joint statement with Google. What’s more, no Google representative is cited by Sun in support of the deal.
Google, itself, has been MIA on its StarOffice agreement: No press release, no announcement, no blog post.
Why is Google suddenly shy about a high-profile distribution deal with a major technology player? Because not only is StarOffice in Google Pack NOT a Microsoft Office killer, it risks being a Google Apps killer, literally.
Google’s Schmidt has proclaimed the new Google motto to be “Search, Ads and Apps”; NOTE: He means Google Apps, NOT Sun applications!
What Microsoft Office “killer” boosters fail to realize is that Google is actually acknowledging its own Google Apps desktop defeat by bundling Sun StarOffice in Google Pack, rather than desktop enabling its own Google Office.
Contrary to very conventional wisdom, the fabled Google Gears is NOT enabling what “Internet surfers for years have (supposedly) yearned for,” Web applications that work offline.
If Google Gears were the Microsoft Office killer enabler that popular perception believes it to be, Google Apps would rule in the cloud AND dominate the desktop; Google Pack would have no need for Sun’s StarOffice under such a wistful scenario.
Google DOES need a third-party application to satisfy user desktop productivity demand though because Google Apps can NOT deliver the Microsoft Office killer the blogosphere is rooting for.
Sun StarOffice to the Google Apps rescue, but NOT to the Google vs. Microsoft rescue.
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