14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has little plans to make the Office System available in the cloud operating system. At least not in the immediate future. Jeff Raikes president of the Microsoft Business Division, has recently stated that the Redmond Company could not identify considerable customer demand to justify a browser-based Office suite. By definition, the cloud operating system involves transitioning the traditional components of a desktop operating system to the Internet and making them available online.
And when you think of a web-based Office suite, you have to compare it with what Google is doing with Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and also Presentations. With Microsoft not planning to move Office into the cloud, the Mountain View company will have sufficient space to develop not only its online productivity suite but also a stable user base.
Microsoft is using the fact that it did not finger point a demand for Office in the cloud as a way to argument the service's unavailability, at least for the time being. But this does not automatically imply that the Redmond Company won't debut such an enterprise when it considers the time to be right.
The only problem lies in Microsoft's strategy that is based on the core of the desktop applications. In this regard, the Redmond Company has already announced that it will adopt a Software plus Service business approach as opposed to Software as a Service. But still, on the distant horizon the sun of a hosted Office suite will rise. Perhaps Google must prove the validity of the business model at first, but wouldn't that be too late?