> Discussing Microsoft's new price cuts for cloud apps, my colleague
> Mary Hayes Weier reported Microsoft VP Ron Markezich said he's seen no
> evidence that Zoho or others offering "fake Office capabilities" can
> match Microsoft Office. Counterpunching, Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu asks
> if that means Bing is fake search"?

> From Hayes Weier's news story, "Microsoft Drops Prices Of Cloud Apps,"
> posted yesterday:

> Still, are Microsoft's cost cuts enough? Google Apps, by comparison,
> which includes apps for documents, spreadsheets and presentations, in
> addition to email, costs only $50 per user per year. Markezich's
> response is that Microsoft offers a scaled-down version of Exchange
> Online, designed for employees who aren't frequent PC users, for $24 a
> year, and a scaled-down version of BPOS for $36 a year. What's more,
> "we're not seeing any inclination that Zoho or Google or Zimbra or any
> other of those offering fake Office capabilities can replace
> [Microsoft Office]," he said.

> Tarred with the brush of being less than real, Zoho's Vembu swung back
> at Microsoft and Markezich in a blog post that light-heartedly but
> pointedly asks if it is indeed true that reality exists only in the
> realm of the market leader. Because if that is so, Vembu writes, then
> Microsoft has a little soul-searching to do over the status of its
> fairly new Bing search engine:

> Wow, wow, wow—Fake Office! That is indeed a badge of honor for us. We
> just have a polite suggestion to Microsoft: to be perfectly
> consistent, Microsoft should also label their Bing "Fake Search"—fair
> is fair, right? For the record, we actually think Bing brings a
> welcome dose of competition and we certainly don't think Bing is by
> any means fake, but with Microsoft marketing terming the entire
> competitive landscape to their number 1 cash cow "fake", we have to
> wonder if that would apply to their own effort at competing with the
> other dominant vendor.

> And then Vembu dropped the all-in-good-fun pretense and lashed back
> hard at Microsoft and what he called its " 'manufacturing' world-view
> of software, with your proprietary lock-ins and your 90% operating
> margins":

> While Zoho and Google are happily doing update after competitive
> update to our respective Office suites, Microsoft, with their "real"
> web office, is not actually making their web offering generally
> available.

> Seriously, the whole "fake office" designation illustrates the main
> problem Microsoft faces. In their world view, with their quaint
> "Release to Manufacturing" rituals, the fact that a Zoho user has no
> CD or DVD to buy, no bloatware to download, nothing to install, simply
> just visit a web site, log-in (using Google or Yahoo accounts, if they
> must), and they are on their way to Work.Online, must all feel a bit,
> well, fake. But take it from us Microsoft: there is nothing fake about
> browser-based applications, no matter how you wish to keep the world
> on your "manufacturing" world-view of software, with your proprietary
> lock-ins and your 90% operating margins.

> In fact, Zoho's employing a bit of jiujitsu strategy against Microsoft
> by taking the "Fake Office" swipe and turning it into a new website
> that asks customers to come and take a look at Zoho's products and
> then decide what's fake and what's real.