Google vs. Microsoft

As you may know, Google and Microsoft are ferocious competitors in the online search business (and online ad business), with Google holding a huge and widening lead.

The latest figures for the search market show this distribution among the major players:

1. Google: 55%
2. Yahoo: 22%
3. MSN: 9%
4. AOL: 5%
5. Ask.com: 2%

But Google also wants to dethrone Microsoft from the desktop arena. Bit by bit, Google has been launching online applications that compete with the different parts of PC-based Microsoft Office.

First it was gmail (Outlook), then Google Docs (Word and Excel), and now they've bought Zenter, an online slide presentation company whose offering competes with PowerPoint, and constitutes the final piece of Google's own business software suite.

An interesting note is that Google also recently launched a browser plug-in that lets you use web applications while offline, called Google Gears. Though still very much a beta product, Google Gears gives some insight into Google's view of the future.

Tags: Google, Microsoft, Zenter, Office, Microsoft Office

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