Competition is good… really
I raised an eyebrow yesterday when I saw that Google had acquired Zenter and was going to add presentations to its online docs and spreadsheets suite.
I’ve used G docs (but not G spreadsheets) and found it “okay”. I’m fairly certain G spreadsheets is the same, decent for collaboration and okay for the basics, but you wouldn’t create too extensive a document or model using the tools.
I’m not sure how good Zenter’s stuff is - has anyone use it? What I’m really hoping for is that this gives Google a bit of the office applications marketshare so we can see a bit of innovation around the Microsoft Office suite. Personally, I think Microsoft can do a lot more with Office online. Will this be the poke that the giant of Redmond needs to get it done?
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen competition being the spark that lights innovation. Apple and Microsoft keep enhancing their OS offerings because of their competition. If Moz hadn’t developed Firefox would we see tabbed browsing in IE? Probably not. In a competitive market no one’s able to rest on their laurels. Competition sparks innovation and innovation is great for users so in the end we all win.
