14 DAY TRIAL // The Office 2007 System along with Windows Vista are Microsoft's main cash cows, dominating their respective markets. But while the Redmond company has already faced the competition for its Windows platform coming from Apple's Mac OS X and the various distributions of Linux, the office-productivity software industry is a whole different thing altogether. Microsoft is already struggling against open source OpenOffice and the ODF ISO standard. The company understands that accounting for the lion's share of the office-productivity software market is not sufficient. This is why Microsoft debuted and is feeding heavily the process designed to standardize OpenXML, the default file format of the Office 2007 System, as a viable international equivalent of the ODF open standard.
Microsoft is by no means in short supply of rival products for Office 2007. However, it can take just an alternative solution and the right marketing receipt along with the support of a major brand to tip over the Office 2007 System. It is clear by this time that a product such as WordPerfect Office X3 delivered by Corel will not throw Microsoft off track. Open Office had more potential, mainly because of the ODF ISO standard. But one OpenXML will become an international standard, the open office productivity suite is bound to lose its edge.
But Microsoft is far from relaxing. Google and Adobe are the latest challengers to the domination of Office 2007. Google partnered with Sun, and in addition to its free online-based productivity suite Google Docs & Spreadsheets, the Mountain View search giant included Sun's StarOffice as a free download in Google Pack. Neither Google nor Sun commented their move in relation to Microsoft's Office System.
"Sun is soon going to make an important announcement regarding Sun's StarOffice software. The announcement is likely to have significant impact in the industry about the adoption of Open Document Format and availability of free MS Office-compatible comprehensive office suite," revealed a Sun representative to Mary Jo Foley.
Adobe Systems is also cooking an office-productivity solution designed to kill Microsoft's Office, although the maker of the Creative Suite bundles is going very hush-hush about its strategy. "Though we have not yet announced any intentions to move into the office-productivity software market," stated Adobe's group manager for platform evangelism, Mike Downey, according to Wired. "Considering we have built this platform that makes it easy to build rich applications that run on both the desktop and the browser, I certainly wouldn't rule anything like that out."
But while Google leverages its pack of free desktop downloads, and Adobe can use Acrobat as the tipping point, Microsoft also has a couple of excellent offerings. First off, the Redmond company is offering all the editions of the Office 2007 System as free 60-days trial downloads. In addition, Works 9 will also be free in an ad-supported version.