While Google faced frustration from Yale and UC Davis, Microsoft closed a groovy deal with the Kentucky Department of Education. Live@Edu brings free access to web-based email, calendars, document sharing, online collaboration tools and 15 gigabytes of email storage plus 25 gigabytes of file storage to over half a million students and faculty. Microsoft earned style points with the victory as well by pulling off the largest cloud deployment in the U.S. over a single weekend. Chuck Austin, the product manager for Kentucky’s Department of Education, says that the smooth move to Live@Edu will save the state $6.3 million over the next four years. That just manages to edge out the cost savings reported from Google’s Oregon Department of Education deal, reported at $1.5 million per year (times four is $6 million.) However, the real booty being battled over has little to do with upfront dollar figures. The actual prize: the promise of lifelong brand loyalty. These free cloud-based education products—which do not feature advertising, by the way—are getting the next generation of web users familiar and comfortable with either Microsoft or Google products. A win with the state’s Department of Education means scoring a new user down the road – of Exchange, Bing and Live or Gmail, Google and Google Apps. That’s going to matter big time as the warring tech giants continue to get all up into each other’s business (literally.) Android, iOS, Windows Mobile, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, AdMob, AdSense, iAds—they’re all different battlegrounds in the same global war. This recent win is important for Microsoft which lately is perceived as a lumbering incumbent sinking deeper into irrelevance (see: Apple’s market cap and the faltering hype surrounding the Windows 7 phone) with more deft maneuvers like what we saw in Kentucky, Microsoft can easily prove that the old man’s still got it. I’ll have to play with the new Microsoft Office Apps which went GOLD today to see how they work and function. Previous to today only Excel and Powerpoint worked and their integration with Office 2010 was limited. You can expect some articles of course details my feedback so stay tuned! Microsoft has it’s 88,000 employee’s constantly working to bring the latest . . . And to alexmvp… you’re not comparing apples to apples. you seriously think Google Sites is a replacement for Sharepoint? LOL. That’s like saying your mouse sucks because it can’t boil a pot of water… its not supposed to. Yep, I only use 1 feature in MS Office, and that features call PowerPivot. Tell me where the equivalent of PowerPivot in Google Apps or Open Office? The point is not how many features you use, but what features you use. And most of the equivalent advance features for MS Office in Google Apps or Open Office is either inferior of non-exist. Only power users use the advanced and shiny features, most people (aside from you and I and highly technical people) don’t use them. Also, do you realize that PowerPivot isn’t part of the Office suite? it’s an addon, and if you’re using it then you’re not the average user. So nice try but that’s another fail. Furthermore, most people don’t need to do that kind of work unless they’re DBAs or data analysts. And if you insist on comparing irrelevant things then, you can always use google charts in conjunction with your spreadsheets (thats your equivalent) to get visualization of data, better than powerpivot. Anyway, this went on long enough so you guys have fun with this thread. Oh yeah and happy fourth of July. Saw, is my user name where I can comment anonymously; sawengchuan is my username when I can’t comment anonymously. Again, comment anonymously will make my comment less credit? As long as my comment is valid, it doesn’t matter I comment anonymously or not, right? And you still talk about how many, not what features that the user actual use. We can have a general consensus that overall, every user only use 10% features of MS Office. BUT, is User A 10% equal to User B 10%? And is that 10% is provided by Google Apps or Open Office? Every user is different. This is a myth. It doesn’t matter how many features you are using, but what features that actually been used. And mind you, if you don’t know, Open Office also can do macro. Comment
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