Contemporary Business 14th Edition by Louis Boone, David Kurtz

Exercise 5

Microsoft and Google Square Off on the Web Google took a big step into Microsoft-dominated territory with its introduction of home and office tools like Gmail and Google Docs, and especially with its own operating system, Chrome OS, to challenge Microsoft's long-running Windows series. Google even has a Web browser, also called Chrome, to compete with Microsoft's entrenched Internet Explorer, while Microsoft challenges Google's dominance in Internet searches with its new search engine, Bing. Google has long supported Web-based applications, as opposed to the desk-top applications that have been Microsoft's specialty, but Microsoft is fighting back. It's creating browser-based versions of its desktop Office products including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to compete with Google's cloud-computing tools. Microsoft's applications, often known for growing by adding more and more features in each new generation, will have to match Google's successful focus on speed and ease of use. Google has used these characteristics to promote a great user experience with its PC products, an advantage it hopes to import into the business applications market. "We want to spoil people like heck in their personal lives," says Google's vice president of product management. "Then when they go to work, they should be asking the question, 'Why are things so hard?'"Google credits some of its success to its design teams' unwillingness to settle for the status quo. "I don't think our Docs team has ever been fundamentally happy with their product," said the president of the company's enterprise group. That restlessness means shortfalls in any Google product's performance may be short-lived. Google Docs, for instance, can't yet match Microsoft Word's editing and page layout features, while Google Spreadsheets offers limited performance and scaling capabilities.Google is so determined to solve such problems, however, that it's helping to shape the creation of the World Wide Web's new HTML5 language, the standard for structuring and presenting content on Web pages and Web-based documents. "We view the Web as a platform," says Google's enterprise product management director. "We don't view it as a companion to the desktop. . . . We want the vast majority of users of Microsoft Office to be able to easily switch to Google Docs."
-What feature or features do you think Google has identified as its basis for competitive differentiation?