Office 2010: Microsoft’s next big challenge

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Microsoft, when it looks back on 2009, will almost certainly do so with some satisfaction.

If the year before had been about the departure of Bill Gates, the failed attempt to acquire Yahoo and the ongoing challenges with the Windows Vista operating system, 2009 has had far more pluses to it.

Bing, for instance, has been a moderate success, giving Microsoft a little bit of extra share in the web search market - for far less money than it would have cost to buy Yahoo. It’s also seen off the challenge of Linux in the netbook sector, watched as the Xbox 360 solidified its place in the console market and in many ways cemented its overall business.

But it’s not all been perfect. Revenues are sliding, and the firm has shed jobs this year, but it’s still in far healthier shape than many of its rivals.

And then there’s Windows 7. Contrasted with the unveiling of Vista, Windows 7 has been a triumph, with enthusiasm for the product unparalleled in recent times for a Microsoft operating system.

Now that the hype is dying down, the hard job of selling it to customers steadfastly clinging onto Windows XP continues, but Microsoft is in a more positive position with its OS than it has been for a long time.

Enter the Office

Next year brings with it a fresh challenge, and that’s to reinvigorate the Office business. Now released in a limited beta, there’s plenty riding on Microsoft Office 2010.

This is the release, after all, where the firm has to address the growing threat posed by the number of challengers to Microsoft’s dominance of the market. Because far more than Windows is, Office is vulnerable, and has some very potent competitors snapping at its heels.

The two leading the chase are OpenOffice.org and Google. The former has made real inroads over the past few years, and while there’s still a reluctance on behalf of some businesses to adopt it, a fully-functional free office suite has obvious appeal for firms looking to make economies in tough times.

While Microsoft’s pricing has been competitive, in some cases it’s still edging three figures a seat for an Office licence. And when a product such as OpenOffice or one of its support-backed alternatives can offer the same functionality at a far reduced cost, that’s very tempting.

Then there’s cloud computing, something that Google is gearing up for a full-on assault on in 2010. Pretty much the whole basis of Google pushing its Chrome OS model is to switch users to a cloud computing way of working, and Google Docs is primed and ready to accept for when it arrives.

Google already offers a corporate, service-backed version of its Docs word processing and spreadsheet tools - and they’re the very beginnings of Google’s plans in this area - and while the common consensus is that they’re inferior to Microsoft’s Word and Excel, there’s also an acceptance that for most people, they’ll do.

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