Enterprise open source Toolkit

Story: Windows' dominance stifles demand for Linux

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The Linux Desktop Opportunity

There is no doubt that MSOffice bound business processes will be rewritten or enhanced to take advantage of the Web. Web enhancement greatly reduces maintenance and administration costs while exploding productivity through universal access to information, Web services, and collaborative computing. The great transition is going to happen.

If these MSOffice bound business processes are enhanced by integration into the proprietary MS WebStack-Cloud-RiA model, all bets are off on the Linux Desktop for business uses.

If these MSOffice bound business processes are rewritten to the Open Web, the Linux Desktop and MAC OS will come to rule the business workgroup as the primary interface into business information systems.

In this way, the future of the Linux Desktop is as tied to the success of Open Web as that of Linux Server systems. To get there though, the focus of Linux Open Source communities and providers has to shift towards the re-purposing of MSOffice. When it comes to MSOffice bound business processes and systems, "replacement" has failed.

Yes, there are some prominent Open Web - Linux Desktop supporters like IBM who have no other choice but to seek the "replacement" of MSOffice on those business workgroup desktops. But this is due to IBM's situation with Lotus Notes and the crushing MS Office-WebStack-Cloud juggernaut rolling over those many Notes installations. To put it bluntly, Lotus Notes can not survive the juggernaut if they have to rely on Microsoft's good will and willingness to share the desktop client environment. Anti-trust inspired though that "good will" and "willingness" may be.

Oracle walks a similar tightrope, wanting to open up the "client" side of their "client/server" equation without offending their host.

Google's approach to the "replacement" or "re-purpose" question is a bit more interesting. They are in a position to play it both ways. Applications and services like Google Docs, gMail, and Chrome are alternative "replacements" to Microsoft applications and services. For anyone not involved or connected to an MSOffice bound workgroup, the Google price is right, the service features fantastic, and the future Open Web all the way.

The Google problem is that of cracking into those bound business processes and systems. Google search is a great feature, but it's not integrated into the bound business processes in ways that will compete with workflow documents organized through the proprietary LINQ and Smart Tag technologies. And Google never did care much for Open Web metadata alternatives, RDF and SPARQL.

Google Docs provides easy to use collaboration, sharing and publishing. It's great. But try collaborating on an MSOffice "in-process" document, and the hapless conversion mechanism will "break" that document beyond the point of productive return. With the SharePoint protocol, Microsoft brings the collaborative value to "in-process" documents while their still "in-process". The MSOffice editors never disengage, the process remains intact, and the full value of collaboration is simply added to an existing workflow.

For these reasons, i think at some point Google will have to consider "re-purposing" MSOffice. Otherwise, they will have to concede the business Web to Microsoft, and settle for consumer activities.

Just some thoughts,
~ge~

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