We are living in a digital civilization that belongs to the web and internet. Our entire user experience as a consumer, as a citizen and perhaps as a being is transforming into an online one. The Microsofts and Googles of the world are corporations that govern our very existence today. Just think about your dependence on them for your small day to day activities and you get will an answer how much they have become a part of your life. As commerce grows and business prospects of this digital economy become brighter so does the need for corporate domination. This digital age is currently witnessing a phase when corporate giants to gather a foothold in the mega market of tomorrow are fighting it out. The current user experience is between
desktop and web. While Microsoft perhaps leads in “desktop dominance” Google on the other hand at “Total Web Experience dominance”. As the desktop and web divide becomes narrower conflicting interests are taking shape between the two tech giants. Google Gears is perhaps another attempt by Google to get into the offline “desktop dominance” space which Microsoft rules.

Google Shifts Gears

The entire world is getting online and speeds are becoming better and better. Internet is becoming pervasive. All of a sudden on 31st May 2007 Google decides to shift gears literally and get into an offline mode. Google launches a technology called Google Gears, an open source technology for creating offline web applications. In layman terms Google Gears will ensure availability of data and applications when there’s no Internet connection available, or when a connection is slow or unreliable.

Google Gears provides three key features:

* A local server, to cache and serve application resources (HTML, JavaScript, images, etc.) without needing to contact a server

* A database, to store and access data from within the browser

* A worker thread pool, to make web applications more responsive by performing expensive operations in the background

As a developer, you’ll be able to make an application with the assurance that it will work offline and online across browsers. Google spokesman said “This new browser extension is being made available in its early stages so that everyone can test its capabilities and limitations and help improve upon it. The long-term hope is that Google Gears can help the industry as a whole move toward a single standard for offline capabilities that all developers can use.”

Google Gears - a brilliant strategy

Google Gears is perhaps an example of an absolutely brilliant strategy been executed by Google to get into a territory long dominated by Microsoft. The strategy is brilliant because it combines several powers to take on the might of Microsoft, the world’s biggest company and Google’s closest competitor. It also speaks volumes of the “thought network” (elaborated more in detail in next paragraph) Google has how this company has today taken such a dominating position in the technology world.

For one Google Gears is brilliant because this is the nth product of Google that tries to penetrate into stronghold of Microsoft. Writely, later rechristened Docs, Spreadsheets, Google Desktop are some of the other missiles Google has already positioned to get into the Microsoft space. In other words Google is making Microsoft fight multiple competition products. Google doesn’t have much to lose but Microsoft has a lot to defend.

The second reason is Google Gears very intelligently gets the Open Source community involved into this. In other words Google Gears is actually gearing the Open Source community to take on Microsoft. Open Source anyway never had Microsoft as their best friend and Google seems to make the most of that.

The last and a rather important reason is, this further helps Google in terms of getting more innovation through individual and joint developer efforts, distributed computing, moving applications toward a single standard for offline capabilities and more than that good PR in terms of underdog versus corporate giant.

The Thought Network of Google

Why haven’t the other companies, some really huge technology giants achieved even half of what Google has? The answer is the thought network of Google. The Stanford University Network and the Google connection is well known. In the true guru-shishia tradition Google has even dedicated Google Scholar to their gurus on which they say “We recognize the debt we owe to all those in academia whose work has made Google itself a reality and we hope to make Google Scholar as useful to this community as possible. We believe everyone should have a chance to stand on the shoulders of giants.”

Google today really is on the “shoulders of giants” becoming within a span of 7 years one of the biggest technology companies in the world challenging the might of the world’s biggest corporate entity. It is this same connection that has been the reason for the out of box innovations that have been produced by Google Labs.

Microsoft is at work

On the other hand Microsoft under Steven Anthony Ballmer is at work. If four years ago somebody said Microsoft had become a maintenance company and innovation had ceased it may have been true. Not any longer. Steve Ballmer has turned around Microsoft into an innovation powerhouse. Six months ago Business Week did a front page story on him as “The soul of a new Microsoft”. The changes at Microsoft have been simply too big. For one no longer is Microsoft just confined to Windows. It’s looking way beyond Windows and for innovation and future profits sake even building bridges with erstwhile enemies like the Open Source Community.

Steve Ballmer is perhaps steering Microsoft in one of the most critical times in the technology history. A year and a half ago Steve Ballmer had affirmed Microsoft’s position “We won the desktop. We won the server. We will win the Web. We will move fast, we will get there. We will win the Web.”

The proof of the statement that it is working lies in the most of the most beautiful products from the Microsoft stable in the recent times “Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007”.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 is perhaps one of the best applications in the recent times which allow data, files and knowledge collaboration. The SharePoint Server has an integrated suite of server capabilities that can help improve organizational effectiveness by providing comprehensive content management and enterprise search, accelerating shared business processes, and facilitating information-sharing across boundaries for better business insight. In other words

A common platform for web content management, enterprise content services, and enterprise search, as well as shared business processes and business intelligence.

Sharepoint 2007 has received really great reviews. Computerworld went on to say “Is Microsoft’s SharePoint 2007 a golden app? Far more flexible and powerful than the InfoWorld Test Center anticipated when we first took it into the lab, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) oozes customization.”

Microsoft and Google

If innovation and products at Microsoft are to be compared with Google there is a noteworthy difference, that of its consumers. Google user base is of simply anybody and everybody. Microsoft users are enterprise users. In other words people who “pay” to use. Noteworthy is they are the same users who have not left Microsoft for Sun’s Open Office, which has been free all this while. Will the same loyal users leave Microsoft for a technically weaker but price free Docs and Spreadsheets and other desktop applications Google is launching in direct competition to Microsoft is a question only time will answer.

The Web Strategy of Microsoft

From Steve’s statement “we will win the web” and other innovations happening at Microsoft the web is obviously high on Microsoft agenda. Which gets onto another Microsoft property MSN. MSN assumes a very important link in Microsoft’s web strategy. What is really happening at MSN if anything at all?

The current equation for the search engine market is as follows

Google 49.7%* versus Yahoo 26.8% versus MSN 10.3% .

*Comscore ratings for April 2007

Changing the equation is bit:

Google 49.7% versus Yahoo + MSN (26.8+10.3)= 33.8%

So is Microsoft taking over Yahoo? Microsoft official spokesperson calls it “speculation.” But if you see the above equation (Yahoo + Microsoft could even come to 35%) it may not be entirely false considering the power Yahoo will add to MSN, a power Microsoft definitely needs in the current scenario to give a fillip to MSN. The multiple attacks directly on Microsoft’s cash cow and other open source threats, plus emerging new business models are simply too great for Microsoft to have another line of attack on its web property MSN already under attack from Google plus now even smaller search engines.

The India Connection

One of the biggest surprises in Google Gears story could be an Indian Technology company. This maybe speculative but there is reason to believe in this. To get this into perspective let’s look at the shopping list of Google and Microsoft in the recent times.

Microsoft is focused on web and the acquisitions show it.

aQuantive, Inc, Seattle, USA - May 2007 - Global digital marketing and advertising solutions. Microsoft’s largest acquisition in history so far, valued at $6 billion.

ScreenTonic SA, Paris, France - May 2007 - Mobile advertising solutions

On the Google front the recent Google acquisitions have been:

Google purchased Tonic Systems in April, 2007, which makes backend software for presentation systems. Zenter created front end editing tools for presentations was taken over this month. Other note worthy acquisitions of 2007 have been FeedBurner, one of the leaders in online broadcasting through online RSS Feeds.

Now offline browsing simply wasn’t hot or maybe people really didn’t care. Now that Google has entered into it will become a great concept. A surprise winner in this area could be an Indian company called webaroo.com. Call it vision or sheer luck but Google Gears may just change the fortune of this company. Founded by Rakesh Mathur (Junglee, Amazon.com fame) Webaroo could just be a very valuable stock at the moment. Call it sheer chance or whatever but in the IT economy India does have a say even if it’s speculative!

Puneet Mehrotra is a columnist on business and technology for Hindustan Times. Email him on puneet@tbe.in