Google’s Facebook KILLER Strategy, Microsoft Too
Sorry, Saul, Google’s OpenSocial IS a Facebook killer, despite YOUR blog post that headlines otherwise! You see, there are MANY ways to skin a Facebook cat, or a Microsoft one, for that matter!
Did you happen to hear Google CEO Eric Schmidt slyly sneak in a Microsoft killing jab during his analyst talk last week? Your Wall Street Journal peer did (but nevertheless got it wrong!).
In Google Confirms: Enterprise Apps is NO Microsoft Office Killer I underscore: In the Google vs. Microsoft war, the key question is NOT “Is Google causing Microsoft to drop its prices (as WSJ’s Ben Worthen jumped at Schmidt’s bait), the real (not so) head scratcher is WHY doesn’t Google have ANY Apps pricing power itself???
Google Apps for Enterprise “limited time,” “30 day free-trial” offer is going strong, and all Google indications indicate that even at the rock-bottom, Microsoft Office “killing” price of $50 per user, per year, Google software is a tough sell, NO MATTER its $625 million Postiini supposed “enterprise ticket.”
SEE: Google Chokes with Postini: Billion Dollar Office Apps Giveaway and IBM Confirms: Google Poses NO Enterprise Threat
Despite Google Apps not being a Microsoft Office replacement, the blogosphere happily plays along with Googley mythology that a “barbarian” software must be free ethos will gnaw at the Microsoft (Bill) Gates (Microsoft Q1 2008 throws some ice cold water on that wishful thinking)!
How about the newly Microsoft fueled Facebook?
The NYT’s Hansell conjectures “I haven’t seen a Facebook application so compelling that you would join Facebook just to use it.”
Leaving aside the fact that the personal tastes of a veteran New York Times reporter are undoubtedly NOT representative of a power Facebook user, the power of F8 is NOT in the individual functionality of the multitude of individual Facebook Apps, the Facebooker appeal is the “candy store” experience of discovering and sharing the latest (stupidest) Facebook fun.
The killer aspect of OpenSocial is that it obliterates Facebook exculsivity not only regarding the F8 Apps themselves, but vs a vs developer talent as well. Internet court jester Esther Dyson may, in fact, be changing her “throw out your development, go use Facebook” advice she gave to would be Web startups in June.
Facebook giddily touts the number of developpers who are working on Facebook Apps AND the number of F8 Apps developed as key success metrics for Facebook, regardless of traction among Faceboookers.
BUT, as Marc Andreesen continues to tell us, the REPURPOSING OF FACEBOOK APPS for OpenSocial will be a boon for Facebook App developers. Subsequently, Mark Zuckerberg wil have a much harder time going forward in wringing a multi-billion dollar equity valuation out of investors because Google is in the process of stealing his F8 thunder, regardless of quality of Apps ultimately repurposed or newly created for OpenSocial.
Just as Google Apps won’t “kill” Microsoft Office on its merits alone, Facebook is not at “fatal” risk becuase of the ingenuity of OpenSocial. Who says Google plays fair though?
The Google $200 billion market cap game is one of perception: Google Apps is undercutting Microsoft Office because it is cheaper and OpenSocial will undercut Facebook because it is wider.
YES, Google is happily engaging in killer strategies, believing it can actually spur along Microsoft extinction, and now, Facebook irrelevancy.
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ALSO: Google’s Gadget Ploy: The Web, Owned by GOOG AND Google Internet Fortress vs. Web 2.0 Cocktail Banter