Microsoft is one-up-ing Google by allowing enterprises to host Office software instead of forcing them to store the data at Google/Microsoft servers.  Besides the obvious worry about some other company controlling your private and secure information, there are other advantages for comapnies as well.

When something goes wrong, you want to be able to fire people, and this becomes possible with self-hosted office software.  Companies want to feel in control, and pushing it out to the web eliminates that control.  There is nothing to stop Google/Microsoft for example in the case that the government demands data from them.  In fact, this happened in the past with Yahoo and others.

In fact, who wants to depend on the internet for optimal availability?  I mean, it’s the same problem with VOIP in that when your internet goes down, your business goes down with it–a recipe for serious unproductivity.

With Microsoft tanking the first step, it’s not unreasonable to think that eventually Google may bend to offer a similar service, however unlikely.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 8:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.