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09.30.09 Why Most Developers Will Not Use Office 2010  By
Robert Scoble
I really like Office 10. Looks great, doesn't it? Lots of new features. And it even works well on the web. But it is doomed to be kept out of my toolbag. I realized that when Yong Ming Guang, CEO of Socialwok, showed me his new collaborative toolset today. How will Microsoft Office be locked out? Mobile phones. "But, Scoble, Microsoft Office has made a deal with Nokia." OK, name one geek in your circle that still uses a Nokia phone. I can't and it doesn't look like the new Nokias will get me anytime soon. Certainly not with Palm Pre phones selling for under $100 and Android phones coming on big time with developers that I talk with (you do note, don't you, that Guang is holding an Android phone in the picture above). So, why won't Microsoft Office be able to ship on iPhone and Android and Palm Pre and Blackberry? Well, they might be able to, but the versions they showed me so far are pretty heavyweight. IE, they load slow and on mobile phones that's death. Google's spreadsheet, on the other hand, is made for the mobile web and opens fast.
Also, Microsoft Office 10 isn't shipping yet. You'll notice that developers like Yong Ming Guang is showing off their systems now. What's the chances that they'll rip out the functionality they built using Google's APIs and put in some unproven Microsoft APIs? Let's just say it's between 0 and 0. "But, Scoble, it doesn't matter, don't you realize that everyone in the world is forced to use Microsoft Office anyway?" That isn't true and over the next five years is going to be less and less true. If I asked at a conference five years ago, even an early adopter geek conference, how many people used Microsoft Office, lots of hands would go up. Today? Very few hands go up whenever I ask that question. By the way, what does SocialWok do? It is a new collaborative feed tool built around Google's applications. Think about it as Facebook for your workgroup. I thought it was lame the first minute, but after digging into it I'm pretty convinced that it, or something like it, will change how we work. Why? Because of mobile phones. Three years ago I used to carry my laptop everywhere. Now? I only carry my iPhone. It's amazing how much work I can get done with it. Continue reading this article. About the Author: Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net's Vice President of Media Development. |
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