Is Microsoft's Business Plan Obsolete?- 28 February 2000
Charles W. Moore
What Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson eventually decides regarding
Microsoft's fate in the U.S. government's antitrust action against
the software colossus may not be the biggest problem on Bill Gates
and Steve Ballmer's plates. Looming is potentially punishing competition from free software --
not just the Linux operating system, which is gradually eating into
the Windows OS hegemony on enterprise PC platforms, but also new
freeware threats to Microsoft Office, which now enjoys about an 80
percent share of the productivity application market, and reportedly
accounts for some 40 percent of Microsoft's profits. - Is Microsoft, as some suggest, stuck in an obsolete business
plan ill-suited to an increasingly wired world? Was Windows 2000,
five years in gestation, "yesterday's OS" before it was
released?
Specifically, Microsoft charges a lot for its Windows and
Office Software. Once Linux becomes user friendly for ordinary users,
something CorelLinux has pretty much accomplished, with others to
soon follow, will Microsoft be able to continue convincing IT
managers to equip large businesses with licensed Windows 2000 Pro
software at a list price of $289 a pop, when Linux is available for
free or a nominal convenience fee. There are also other inexpensive
Unix-based options, like Sun's Solaris and Hewlett-Packard Co.'s
HP-UX, or Apple's nascent MacOS X, which should undercut Win2000 Pro
substantially in price. Perhaps someday people actually will "get
fired for choosing Microsoft software." Besides CorelLinux and several other easier-to-use Linux variants,
a development group called Eazel,
led by several veterans of the original Apple Macintosh team (Michael
Boich, Andy Hertzfeld, and Bud Tribble) was founded last August with
the objective of developing desktop software and a user friendly
interface for Linux that they claim will "revolutionize desktop
computing." "Our goal isn't to recreate what we did 15 years ago
[with the Mac]," says of Eazel president and CEO Michael
Boich, "It's to combine a next generation desktop with Internet-based
services to deliver a superior user experience." The free, Open Source-based Linux operating system has enjoyed the
fastest adoption rate of any operating system in history, and Eazel
intends to ride that wave by developing products that make Linux as
easy-to-use as Windows or the Mac OS. As well, Corel Corp., and Inprise Borland, recently announced
their intention to merge, potentially creating a Linux powerhouse
that could credibly challenge some of Windows' hegemony. Corel is
also reportedly developing a Web delivery system for its productivity
products, as is IBM with its Lotus SmartSuite office suite. Then there's Microsoft's ubiquitous Office productivity suite,
which sells for an individual price of about $480 per copy or $200
per upgrade from earlier versions, while Corel's WordPerfect Office
2000 for Linux, a fully functional office suite, will soon be bundled
with the CorelLinux OS beginning in Q2 '00. StarOfficeHowever, you don't have to wait -- or be running Linux, to get a
full-featured free office productivity software suite now. Sun
Microsystems' Star Division offers StarOffice a powerful,
multiplatform suite of office applications for free over the
Internet. Like MS Office, Star Office comes with a word processor, a
spreadsheet program, a presentation program, a draw module, a data
base program, a calendar, an email program, and a Web browser. It is
arguable that none of these applications are as good as the
corresponding ones in MS Office, but they are more than functional
enough for the typical Office user, and cost nothing. The StarOffice suite consists of: - StarOffice Writer: word processing
- StarOffice Calc: spreadsheet
- StarOffice Impress: presentation software
- StarOffice Draw and StarOffice Image: graphics software
- StarOffice Schedule: calendaring
- StarOffice Mail: email
- StarOffice Base: database interface
- StarOffice Discussion: newsreader
- StarOffice Math: formula software
- StarOffice Workplace: desktop environment
The word processor module, Star Writer, can open, edit, and save
Microsoft Word files, handle Word's paragraph styles, numbered
paragraphs, bulleted lists, and many other formats. You can also
create tables, set bookmarks, and create footnotes. With, as Sun puts
it, "Microsoft office Interoperability -- seamless and transparent
migration and exchange of word processing, spreadsheet, and
presentation files." Star Office's email client program isn't as good as Microsoft's
Outlook Express, and its bundled Web browser is pedestrian compared
with Microsoft's Internet Explorer, however those components of
Office (as well as Netscape Communicator and Eudora 4.3) are
available from Microsoft for free anyway, and they can be used in
conjunction with StarOffice. StarOffice 5.1 is available in versions supporting Windows, OS/2,
Linux, Solaris, Java, and soon the Mac OS, with the engineering
effort to port StarOffice to the Mac reportedly now well
underway. StarOffice can be downloaded from the StarOffice website or a
CD-ROM may also be ordered via the web at <http://www.sun.com/products/staroffice/get.html>. Sun's nominal rationale for providing StarOffice for free is that
if more software people want to use is available online, more people
will use the Internet, which in turn will encourage more service
providers to upgrade their systems, which would be good for Sun's
Internet server sales. However, it has been suggested that the real motivation behind
Sun's launch into the office software orbit is continued animosity
between Sun and Microsoft. Sun has historically sold no desktop
application programs, so giving away StarOffice won't harm its bottom
line, but any significant switching trend from MS Office to
StarOffice will be bad news for Microsoft. ThinkFree OfficeAnother free MS Office alternative is ThinkFree.com's ThinkFree
Office, a Web-based productivity suite which the company claims is
fully compatible with Microsoft Office. Developed from the ground-up
in Sun's Java programming language, ThinkFree Office is optimized for
the Web and will be available Windows, UNIX, Linux and Macintosh
versions, although it currently supports only Microsoft Windows 95,
98 and NT, and Red Hat Linux 6.0. The ThinkFree Office family of applications includes: - Write, a Microsoft Word compatible word processor/HTML
editor
- Calc, a Microsoft Excel compatible spreadsheet
- Show, a Microsoft PowerPoint compatible presentation graphics
program
- Mail, an IMAP4 and POP3 email client with an integrated file
attachment viewer
- Contacts, an address book with built in LDAP support
- Folders, a file manager for navigating and managing documents
in local folders or in secure ThinkSafe cyberfolders.
ThinkFree Office uses a MS Office-like interface and offers
complete file format and user interface compatibility. ThinkFree
claims its Office gives consumers all the advantages of Microsoft
Office both online and offline. "ThinkFree Office is about freedom," says Ken Rhie, president of
ThinkFree.com. "It frees the user from any operating system, device
or location. It even frees the user from having to have a constant
Internet connection. And, of course, the product itself is free." Small businesses and organizations will appreciate ThinkFree
Office's low total cost of ownership, since updates from the Web are
automatic, eliminating the need for maintenance or upgrades. In
addition, since it operates like the familiar Microsoft Office,
training needs are minimized. In a telephone interview, Ken Rhie told me that he has contracted
a consulting firm that specializes in Java for the Mac to help
accelerate development of the Macintosh version of the suite. Mr.
Rhie did not wish to speculate on a target date for the Mac version's
release at this point, but said that it's possible that it could be
available within a "couple of months." "We will love to have a Mac
version of ThinkFree Office," said Mr. Rhie. While the standard version of ThinkFree Office is free, there will
also be a "Business Edition" available for fee. ThinkFree.com is
backed by Massachusetts-based Prism Venture Partners as well as
investments from Tredegar Investments, LG and Samsung. ThinkFree
Office is available free to consumers on the company's portal site,
http://www.thinkfree.com. For
more information, contact: info@thinkfree.com.
- <this article available in a printer-friendly
version>
Recent Miscellaneous Ramblings- Are Aqua-skeptics luddites?, Charles
W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 3/29. "I have no interest in
change for the sake of change, or in putting form before function,
and I really have no time for change that makes things
worse."
- Dealing with dead pixels in TFT
displays, 3/23/2000. Detecting and dealing with dead pixels on
PowerBooks.
- Rolleiflex embraces digital
revolution, Charles W. Moore, Miscellaneous Ramblings, 3/13.
Ancient, respected camera manufacturer makes digicams and digital
backs.
- Older PowerBook, iBook prices crowd
$1,000-1,500 range, 3/8/2000
- Apple to get toasted in processor
speedstakes?, 3/7/2000. "Mike reports that his friend believes
the Athlon is noticeably faster than the G4s...."
- More on the Miscellaneous Ramblings home
page.
Recent Editorials at Low End Mac- A road not taken (by
Apple), Scott Atkinson, Mac Musings, 4/11. "Unlike Macs,
there's nothing here to make you stop and admire the
craftsmanship."
- Low End Mac at three, Dan
Knight, Mac Musings, 4/10. A look back at Low End Mac's first
three years.
- Apple Tech Support or pop
psychology?, David Schultz, Virtuality, 4/7.
- Bulldozing for a faster drive,
Paulo Rodrigues, Tangerine Fusion, 4/5. It takes some time, but
here's on inexpensive way to speed up your old hard drive.
- New @ Low End Mac:
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BiographyCharles Moore has been a
freelance journalist since 1987 -- and writing for Mac web sites
since May 1998. His The
Road Warrior column is a regular feature on MacSimple. Charles lives and works in Port Hilford, Nova Scotia, on the shore
of Indian Harbour Lake and in sight of the Atlantic Ocean. His
newspaper columns are syndicated across Canada, and he writes
regularly for several magazines, as well as doing Mac website
journalism. Charles is also a contributor to MacToday magazine. His current stable of Macs includes a Mac
Plus, an LC 520, a Power
Mac 9500, a PowerBook 5300, and a
PowerBook G3 Series II/233.
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