Category: My Computer

Microsoft doesn't like attachments, prefers you use "Skydrive"

Microsoft, not surprisingly, stacks the deck a bit regarding How Awful Attachments Are. For instance, it's not clear to me that people who lose where they saved their attachment and delete the original email aren't going to lose where on Skydrive it is or delete the original email that told them.

That said, using email for collaborative documents is, even if just two people are involved, a not-very-efficient method of working. But it's fairly simple and straightforward: the sender can just keep the file on their own hard drive rather than a slower web drive; the sender doesn't have to worry about who has rights (and of what kind) to the file or directory; collaborators don't have to worry about explicit check-in/out or two simultaneous workers overwriting a doc, etc.).

And that having been said, it's unclear why Skydrive is, for the arguments given, any more cool or useful than Dropbox or Google Docs, etc.

Still, it's an interesting set of arguments for Microsoft to be making. #ddtb

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Microsoft says, "Attachments Suck" in new infographic
Microsoft has released a new and entertaining infographic that promotes its Skydrive cloud-based service for transfers of documents, stating flat out that "Attachments Suck."

From Microsoft comes this highly snarky video, trying to convince businesses that a search company "moonlighting" a purveyor of productivity software is a bad choice for them. A few thoughts.

1. Microsoft is hardly a disinterested observer here. Microsoft Office (et al.) is their biggest cash cow, and Google Apps is a direct and ongoing challenge to that. If it weren't, MS wouldn't be producing this sort of fluff.

2. For all MS's FUDding about security and the cloud and all — they have their own cloud Office suite (and one which is multiple generations behind Google's).

3. Google has been running Apps for quite some time. This is not beta software. What is new(ish) is Google marketing directly to businesses with it.

4. Offlline access is an important point, but not necessarily a deal-breaker, depending on your business and where it works. Some companies are persistently online with their locations and personnel; for others, it's more of a challenge.

5. Google is not, in my experience, a responsive company to what clients ask for. They have their vision, their roadmap, and they move forward with it. Microsoft doesn't create customized versions of their apps, either — but a lot more deployment flexibility is built-in, and there's large ecosystem of third parties willing to help with further features and so forth.

6. Google's offerings aren't cheap. Neither are Microsoft's. I think Google per user is less expensive, but not as much as you might think.

7. Google Apps are not as powerful as Office's analogous apps. The question is, how many of those features are actually needed by most users. Some organizations, for example, may be heavy pivot table users; others may well not be.

8. Google Apps online, active collaboration abilities surpass anything Microsoft offers.

So there are some reasonable strengths that Microsoft can bring to this particular discussion, and weaknesses or shortcomings on the Google side that they can point out. Unfortunately, this ad just comes off more as snark than anything else, a typical Microsoft FUD attempt, which doesn't help anyone. #ddtb

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