Cloudier than thou
The vast majority of Microsoft's revenue comes from either Windows or Office, so the launch of new versions of either has traditionally been viewed as cash-in time for the software behemoth.
But times they are a-changing; people no longer expect to be productive only when they're at their desktops and, with the continued evolution of cloud computing and software-as-a-service, the traditional Microsoft model of selling boxed software for a large up-front price is becoming obsolete.
No company knows this better than Google, which not only wants to move everyone to the cloud, it has also launched its own productivity software and mobile operating system. These are all huge threats to Microsoft, so it comes as no surprise to see Microsoft directly address them in the latest version of its productivity suite - Office 2010 - which was officially made available as a volume license today together with the latest version of its collaboration platform - SharePoint.
"Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 define the future of productivity," said Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft's business division at the New York launch event. "With the 2010 set of products, organizations will save, innovate and grow as their people benefit from working across the PC, phone and browser."
Conscious of the claims Google is making about the relative cost of upgrading to Office 2010, compared to Google docs, Microsoft is talking-up a study it commissioned from Forrester, which concluded that the increased productivity from upgrading to Office 2010 means it will have paid for itself after 7.4 months and deliver an ROI of 300 percent.
