Joe Wilcox’s post ‘R.I.P.: The Web 2.0 Office Suite‘ is almost laughable. Right off the bat he either fudges the numbers or just plain gets them wrong: “Ninety-four percent of U.S. consumers have never heard of Web-based productivity suite alternatives.” Uh, take a look at that huge pie chart you shoved in your piece, you’ll see quite clearly that it’s actually 73.2% who have never heard of Web-based productivity suites according to this survey. A large number yes, but hardly 94% – was he just so excited to write this piece that he forgot to read the actual data? Why not say: a thousand million percent of people surveyed loved Microsoft and will never use Google products?

Errors and/or fudging aside, the best part of the article has to be how quickly it jumps to the conclusion that Web 2.0 Office software is R.I.P. Would Google like broader awareness? Sure, but it’s simple: this is a relatively new and growing market. This, like so many other pieces of a similar ilk seem to want you to believe that innovation stops from this point forward. Do you really think that in 10 years when we have a whole new slew of not just web-enabled, but web-centric mobile devices that we can’t even dream of right now, people are still going to be using software such as Microsoft Office the same way? No.

I like Microsoft Office but I find it extremely bloated for what I need. You know what isn’t? Google Documents. You know what else? It exists online so I can access my files anywhere. You know what else? It’s free – rather than hundreds of dollars. Not that many people may have heard of it now, but when they learn those things and more importantly, become more comfortable using online software, do you really believe they won’t at least consider switching?

Just personally I can give you a handful of examples of me telling people about Google Documents (yes, for the first time), and them thinking it’s the greatest thing on Earth after seeing what it is. “Why would anyone pay all that money for Microsoft Office?” Most people simply don’t need all the bloat the Microsoft packs into Office. They need a word processor and they need a spreadsheet maker. Most only require that it do things like spellcheck, minor formatting, and math (which Microsoft comically had a problem with earlier in the year – a hundred dollar spreadsheet app that can’t do math correctly).

Again, the online office is a growing market. Om Malik writes today about how Google is slowly but surely signing deals to potentially include Google Documents standard with certain ISPs. If it’s sitting in front of them when they log on, do you really think they’re still not going to know about it? And wait, there’s more. Google is also in talks with several high school across the country to provide their services – which include, guess what? Google Documents. Again, with it staring them in the face, are none of them going to see it?

The New York Times just over the weekend wrote a piece entitled: “Yes, There Can Be Life After Word“. Guess what it’s about? The author realizing he could ditch MS Office for the free Google Documents:

“You use the word processor just like Word, or I should say, the version you might remember from the early 1990s, before Microsoft added all the bells and whistles that you never need.
…
I’ve lived for a month without Word. And it has set me free.”

Maybe no one read this in that little publication called The New York Times. Certainly it won’t mean more people might have heard of Google Documents. Right? Who knows, maybe it was even in response to that very piece that Joe Wilcox decided to write his.

Lets not even mention the fact that as Duncan Riley points out, the survey in question was of 600 PC users. Wow, 600 whole PC users. That is such a ridiculously small sample – and one including exactly 0 Mac or Linux users – that this data might not even be worth talking about in the first place.

If Microsoft listen to Wilcox and think they can keep going along fine because “94%” of people have never heard of Google Documents, they’re gonna be in trouble in 10 years – hell, they’re going to be in trouble starting tomorrow if they believe that. That’s exactly the kind of holier-than-thou attitude that has gotten Microsoft in trouble in the recent past.

The Microsoft Watch article is preposterous. “94%” of people have never heard of web-based productivity software…yeah, or 73% of 600 PC users have never heard of it – and lets draw the conclusion from that that the genre is dead and there will be no more innovation in this or any other field for that matter going forward. Genius.