It’s Just Rumor … But It’s A Fun Rumor. :)

While surfing SlashDot today I discovered that Google has officially declared war on Microsoft by allowing users of the Google toolbar to access Sun’s OpenOffice. This move would put a huge hit on Microsoft as users quickly discovered that while OpenOffice doesn’t have all the bells-and-whistles that Microsoft Office does, it does have the features that the vast majority of us use and … well … it’s free. 🙂

Well you can imagine, as an SEO this was pretty big news to read first thing in the morning (once again proving to myself that I’ve passed over to the dark-side of geekdom). Before posting the news on our blog however I realized that it was definitely news that had to be verified. We couldn’t find mention of it on Google’s own blog which pretty much cleared up whether this was an official announcement or not.

In my travels I did find an article by Jason Stamper, the editor of Computer Business Review Online, regarding all the misinformation that has been going around regarding the Sun-Google alliance. It’s a good article if you’re interested in the topic and can be viewed on this blog at http://www.cbronline.com/blog.asp?show=cbr/2005/10/inaccuracies_ab.html (Note: hyperlink removed as the page no longer exists).

Forber considers the announcement of the alliance “much ado about nothing” whereas an analysis by InfoWorld disagrees. I tend to side with InfoWorld on this one.

While the “announcement” of a formal declaration of war on Microsoft is a rumor and only that, the alliance between Google and Sun Microsystems certainly involves more than simply developing a new source for downloads of the Google Toolbar and the Java Runtime Environment. The inclusion of OpenOffice in the alliance and some additional developments meant to take word processing and spreadsheets online is sure to follow.

Based on what we’ve seen with GMail and Google’s desire to not just index everything but also to place advertising on it is sure to at least spark their interest in developing this technology. Additionally, Google (and all the other major engines I should note) are seeking new ways to tailor their search results to the individual. The ability to “see” what an individual is writing in their word processors and spreadsheet is sure to add an additional level of information to base this targeting on.

How long will this all take? Who knows, but in the end it is sure to occur though whether it ever leaves Beta is the real question. 😉