Google Strikes a Blow to Microsoft

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Google, the no.1 search engine on the Internet, has started to provide online document writing, processing and saving services. Customers will not be charged for the service named “Docs&Spreadsheets” developed to compete with Office, Microsoft’s commercial software which needs installing. To implement this service, Google has combined its online document writing program “Writely,” which it had developed at the beginning of 2006, with “Spreadsheets”, a system for archiving and sharing. Internet users aren’t obliged to install this program onto their computers in order to use it. With this program users can prepare a new document and then process, archive and share documents like those created by programs like Excel, Word etc… These processes can be done on any computer connected to the Internet. As Microsoft owes a great part of its income to the sale of its Office program, sold at $400, this move means a great step forward taken in competing against Microsoft, as this is free software in a sector still dominated by the software giant. Microsoft is set to release the 2007 version of Office in a few weeks time.