Microsoft Office has been in the market for decades. All of us who learned how to use the computer started with the tech giant, Microsoft. However, with the rise of many other tech companies, Microsoft now earned its fair share of competition – Google.
Being an auditor for many years, I have utilized Microsoft Office in my daily work routine -- from writing reports in Word, to using Excel as my worksheet and then PowerPoint for presentation purposes. It is safe to say that I am very much familiar working on Microsoft Office. When I moved to the United States and studied Master of Business Administration, I found out that almost every group I participate in most of my classes uses Google Docs, instead of Microsoft Office.
But which of these two is better?
Let me start by providing a brief comparison of the two platforms. Both Microsoft and Google offer similar productivity applications:
Features Microsoft Office Google Apps
E-mail Outlook Gmail
Word Processing Word Docs
Spreadsheet Excel Sheets
Presentation PowerPoint Slides
Intranet Sharing SharePoint Sites, Groups
Instant Messaging, Video Call Lync Google Chat
When it comes to basic features, these two behave alike. Furthermore, both companies offer add-ons through a centralized marketplace that can customize and enhance a user’s platform. However, despite the similarity, Microsoft Office and Google Apps have some very different attributes. I will focus my discussion on three most common applications. Here’s my
Microsoft has their dominance of the industry at stake. They could potentially come out on top if left to continue their current tactics. They are masterfully “marketing their products” and it is paying off for them (Love, 1997).
General Environment. Today, Google, Inc. (hereinafter "Google" or "the company") competes in the global technology industry where in holds a leading position. The company remains committed to "improving the ways people connect with information" (Form 10-K, 2012, p. 3). The general environment in which the company competes is characterized by rapid growth as well as industry convergence as existing technologies and platforms are stretched to their limits (Hitt, Ireland & Hokisson, 2011). In this environment, Google has emerged as the major actor that is modeling the way for others. For
Google Doc is a web based application associated with Google that is used to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, web forms, and drawings. The documents can also be edited, shared, and stored online. The documents can be stored on Google Doc and Google Drive. The documents created can be accessed from anywhere on a device that is connected to the internet. The application allows users to edit, create, update, and import documents and share them with many users who have a Google account. Most of the people that use Google Doc are students and companies. Google Docs allows students to share group projects and assignments with their classmates and colleagues to collaborate and work on documents as a team. Companies use Google Doc
search engine, cloud computing). What I have learned from doing research on the company Google would be that they focus on diversity, data, and non-typical corporate practices. Data is at the central for a lot decisions Google makes. Besides data examined for typical corporate business, Google’s also considers employee operations. An example of this would be lunch lines (Google offers free meals and snacks to employees), to make the most optimal lunch line (to meet new people and to prevent waste of time), Google has taken data to find and state that the most optimal lunch line is 3 to 4 minutes.
Due to the increased competition from Yahoo and Microsoft, it has posed a great threat to Google Company. Entry of such like companies in the market has been relatively easy and even offering similar services to the consumers is no longer a problem as unlike a while back, technology has greatly improved. With an improvement in technology, creating sites that help people access information from the internet has been quite cheap and all it calls for is the creativity of a company. Google, however, has been able to remain at the top of the chart. They have been able to come up with a user-friendly search engine for their clients, one that is easy to understand as well as easy to use. Also, Google has been able to cut on cost as they are able to create web pages using UNIX web servers which are relatively cheap. This makes it possible for them to minimize the cost of input and hence maximizing their profit margins. This makes it possible for them to hire qualified personnel, offer quality services, advertise their products, and even offer promotions, helping them overcome the competition in the market structure.
Google is one of the most popular, and most used web search engines in the world. Google also has many services that helps you send mail, generate website pages, and create blogs. With all of these great tools come many great, user-friendly features specifically tied to Google. Google has vastly become one of the best search engines in the world, if not the best. Google averages about 12 billion searches per month, which is the most by any search engine in the world. Users can also search for photos, newsletters, and even geographic locations. The best part is, that all of these services are basically free. Google has also set to build more then just a search engine. Google is working on Google glass, self-driving cars, and even have a cell phone called the Android. Google also owns the rights to YouTube, where many users go to upload and watch countless videos. Another great thing the company is doing is spending money on alternative energy sources; last year Google spent 1 billion dollars trying to increase the use of wind and solar energy. Google is also fighting in D.C. to keep the Internet free for Americans. Lastly, Google has one of the best working environments in the world. Google has been the number 1 best company to work for 5 times in a row, including this year. They have been reported to the best human resources department in the world, taking their employee’s happiness over profit. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Google is not the best company to work
Microsoft is a highly diversified company. Its technologically-related products span from software to music players to game consoles to web browsers to search engines to phones. However, its flagship product, the product which has been the primary driver of its profits has been Microsoft Windows, the ubiquitous operating system that runs on virtually every computer in the world. Windows has been deemed so critical that even Microsoft's competitor Apple was effectively forced by market pressures to allow its Macs to run Windows, in an effort to boost sales. "As astounding as Apple's success has been, it hasn't put a dent in the Microsoft Office monopoly. [Current CEO] Ballmer and company still profit on every Macbook running Word, Excel and PowerPoint" (Greg 2012).But while Microsoft continues to make its highly profitable Windows products (despite industry criticism about its user features); it has struggled to diversify in its many critical areas, most notable in its music, phones, and Internet service.
Microsoft's other well known products include, Word, a word processor; Excel, a spreadsheet program; Access, a database program; and PowerPoint, a program used
Google is a multinational corporation that serves thousands of consumers worldwide. Through Internet related products such as Internet searches, maps, emails, mobile apps, and other online contents for users Google became the company it is today. Every employee of Google is different in his or her own way; making it a well-diversified organization similar to the global audience they serve. Google’s mission statement is to organize information from all around the world and make it universally accessible at a quick and orderly fashion. This means creating a search engine smart
Microsoft has been fighting competitors in the Operating System fields as well as the Search field for many years. After Apple launched its new Macintosh computer, Microsoft came out with its first production of Windows which had a graphic user interface. Microsoft had 95% of all OS on individual PC’s in the 2000’s where apple only had about 2%-3% (Rivkin 2). A new venture that Microsoft was working toward was application software where the produced Microsoft Word and Excel. At first these two applications where not very popular on PC computers because WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 where the main applications being run. Microsoft’s solution to this competition was
Microsoft operates in many geographic locations around the world and are behind the world’s most popular desktop operating system in the world. Microsoft is primarily a software company but have flexed their arms into internet services and are behind certain products in consumer market which is directly against Google. Microsoft’s market includes end-customers, enterprises and institutions just like Google. Some of the key Microsoft products are Bing which is a search engine just like Google.com and Microsoft ad center which is a direct
Both Office and Windows became dominant in their respective areas. Novell, a Word competitor from 1984–1986, filed a lawsuit years later claiming that Microsoft left part of its APIs undocumented in order to gain a competitive advantage.
Looking at the sizable market share Microsoft has come to enjoy over the years, a new competitor would face a number of entry barriers before entering this market. Customers are very loyal to the Microsoft brand and would expect any competitor to offer at the very least the same features that Microsoft already has.
The ABC system will help management analyse the profitability of each customer and restore the profitability of the company. Allied needs to offer benefits such as modified compensation plan focused on growing customer revenue and profitability to help encourage sales behaviour. TFC is able to significantly improve profits by concentrating on individual account management which SBP is capable of by identifying service costs and calculate the contribution for each account and then rank the accounts according to profitable ones. TFC should charge its customers based on their service usage by using cost plus pricing. The customers would be charged based on the cost of product plus service charge based on SBP systems plus a mark-up so that it will be fair to customers that have the same sales but different level of service.
As we can infer from the table above, Google‘s mission is consistent with its objectives in terms of how they complement each other. In its mission, Google promises to organize the world’s information and make it available for everyone to access. On the other hand, Google’s first objective is to provide information independent of any financial incentives. Moreover, they clearly state that their profits are mainly derived from advertising while information providing is for free. Google focuses on improving its operation by achieving higher quality products in order to better satisfy consumers, while the objectives precisely states that Google will employee all potential technological developments to improve users’ experience.