Microsoft Building Google Apps/Zoho Competitor

[Mystic]

Most of the good forward looking product information we get out of Microsoft is from the many blogs written by its employees. And when a post is deleted by one of those bloggers, it’s a big alarm bell to seek out and find what they originally wrote.
Today the deleted blog post strikes again (although in this case it’s an altered blog post).

Microsoft developer Tod Hilton wrote a blog post that says it’s his last day with Microsoft’s Global Foundation Services. He’s now moved to the Excel Services team, he says.

Hilton originally posted information on where the product is headed, then quickly removed it. The original text said :

The product has tons of potential and will probably be competing with the likes of Google Spreadsheets, DabbleDB, Zoho and JotSpot Tracker. It’s a really exciting time to be working on this product!

He then removed those sentences and said:

update: I removed some of my personal opinions from this post. I do not want to confuse anyone who might take them as prophecy.

While this doesn’t give away a whole lot, it’s clear that the team is looking to compete directly with Google Apps and Zoho, something they don’t do now. That implies that they are building an online reader/light editor at least for Excel.
Source (http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/08/confirmed-microsoft-building-google-appszoho-competitor/)

[Submerge]

I'd have to agree with the article, they are probably making a web app for excell. About time, they need to compete with Google or they'll go downhill.

[Mystic]

I only hope they make it Opera compatible.

[Submerge]

Wow, you make me laugh almost. Microsoft unveil a project that is compatible with all browsers? :P I'm sure it'll only work with IE7, not even IE6. hehe

[aloksingh]

Microsoft, yahoo and google. These 3 are competing in almost all online things nowadays. Good for consumers like us. Offers lots of choices.

[boron]

Problem with online text editors is that are very slow. I was not able to use Zoho and Google one. So I'm using Thinkfree.com when I need it. It has spredsheet, text editor and presentasion editor. Compatible with Word and Excell.

[Mystic]

I use Google Docs regularly (been using it since writely days). Its actually quite lightweight.

[Submerge]

Well, the good thing is, like said before, it is compatible with the business standards (which is usually Microsoft products). The Internet is low cost, but to purchase the Microsoft products is expensive, so these free web applications are going to be growing hugely. Especially with the falling costs with bandwidth and storage.

[Mystic]

Well, there are a lot of advanced free office suites. The most notable among those being Open Office.