The folks at Zoho don’t seem to think so. They’ve prepared the below spreadsheet explaining why they think Google will run from business productivity programs. As everyone knows, Microsoft built its empire by standardizing business applications i.e. Word, Excel, Power Point, Outlook, etc. Google plays in a different sand box. Can Zoho compete with Microsoft as they create low cost solutions for businesses? Click on the spreadsheet to see a larger version. On its blog, Zoho said, “Google is perhaps the most stunning technology success story ever, but we simply don’t believe Google has the rational business incentive to get too deep into the business/IT software category. The lower revenue and profit per employee figures would be tolerable if there were huge growth opportunities there, but when very successful companies like Adobe and Intuit pull in revenues well shy of a Yahoo, when even the enterprise software leader SAP is smaller, and slower growing than Google (Google makes nearly as much in profit per employee as SAP or Oracle Salesforce make in revenue per employee), it is fairly clear this market is not going to make a material contribution to Google’s growth and profitability objectives. So what is Google’s plan here? It is fairly obvious they are in it to put Microsoft on the defensive on its home turf, so that Microsoft’s offensive capability in the internet is diminished. It is also perfectly clear why Microsoft wants to be an internet player – as Google has shown, it is a higher margin business even than its monopoly-profit core business.”

Tags: enterprise, google