Google Aims to Snag 90% of Microsoft Office Users

"Google will still need to develop the software further, to the point that people actually believe they can do almost everything they need to with Google Apps vs. Office," said analyst Greg Sterling. "The functionally isn't quite there yet." Google Vice President Amit Singh said his company is targeting 90 percent of Microsoft Office users. The war among Google and Amazon  and Apple and Microsoft - and others - heated up in 2012. But in a recent interview, Google Vice President Amit Singh, head of the tech giant's Enterprise unit, suggested the fight between his company and Microsoft is about to get even hotter. The interview in The Wall Street Journal's AllThingsD blog started off with talk about how Google has been making inroads into the enterprise  with products like Google Drive and its cloud  computing platform, as well as Google Apps, Google's suite of Web-based productivity applications. Singh was asked pointed questions about the competitive landscape, what Google has that Microsoft doesn't, and how Google Apps and Microsoft Office are co-existing. The answers to those questions are stirring plenty of debate in the tech world. 90 Percent Grab "In the last year, if you look at the depth of where we've gone with Docs, both in the core features and in the desktop fidelity, we've made tremendous progress. Our goal is to get to the 90 percent of users who don't need to have the most advanced features of Office," Singh said. "Sheets does tables graphing, etc., out of the box. In Q3, if you import from Excel into Sheets, you won't be able to tell the difference in Sheets. We know the gaps between our features and theirs. We're improving them week by week. We're going to get to the 90 percent. If you need the last 10 percent, you'll want to use the desktop. The next thing is the import from PowerPoint to Slides. That's where [the recent acquisition of] QuickOffice is going to help us a lot." Untangling the Comments Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, said Singh's comments are likely based on internal Google analysis, and shows the company believes its Apps and cloud products have a large, addressable market in the enterprise. However, he said, 90 percent may be an exaggeration. "Google will still need to develop the software further, to the point that people actually believe they can do almost everything they need to with Google Apps vs. Office. The functionally isn't quite there yet," Sterling said. "In addition, Office still has a much stronger brand among users. Accordingly, Google will need to develop and market the Apps -- or whatever -- product brand to the point that buyers have more confidence in it." Still, Sterling told us, with the proliferation of mobile devices, Microsoft's overall position has been steadily weakening. He noted that Google Apps also carries a price advantage, which is a big driver of adoption. "Google doesn't have to rely on enterprise software sales as Microsoft does. In a way it's like found money for Google. Google can continue to use pricing as a way to lure more enterprise customers," Sterling said. "As the software continues to improve its should see increasing numbers of defections from Office."