Google + Quickoffice = get more done anytime, anywhere
We're happy to announce that we have acquired Quickoffice, a leader in office productivity solutions. — Today, consumers, businesses and schools use Google Apps to get stuff done from anywhere, with anyone and on any device.
Context & Ripple Effects
This is Google's second buy aimed squarely at Microsoft Office's file formats: after acquiring DocVerse in December 2009 to let people co-edit Office documents from inside Google Docs, it has now purchased Quickoffice, whose mobile apps open and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files on phones and tablets. The move lands on an Apps platform that Google has been steadily widening — Google+ was opened up to Google Apps customers in October 2011 — as it positions the suite for consumers, businesses and schools working across devices.
The story travelled widely on day one, with eight outlets picking it up, and the framing was consistent: the New York Times' Bits blog cast it as 'As Google Bets on Mobile Office, Microsoft Waits,' while ZDNet read it as mobile reinforcement ahead of Windows 8 — both zeroing in on the fact that Microsoft's own touch-era Office plans were still unshipped.
First-order effects
- Quickoffice's mobile editing apps now sit under Google's control, giving Google Apps users a way to work with Office files on smartphones and tablets without going through Microsoft's apps.
- Microsoft faces a direct competitor in mobile Office-file editing at precisely the moment its own next-generation Office and Windows 8 offerings have yet to ship.
Second-order effects
- Google can fold Quickoffice's capability into Android itself, turning Office-file compatibility from a paid third-party app into a default feature of the platform Microsoft depends on.
- The acquisition raises the pressure on Microsoft to take Office beyond Windows — every month it holds the suite back as a Windows differentiator, Google's any-device pitch gets easier to sell to businesses and schools.
Third-order effects
- If the DocVerse-then-Quickoffice arc is the template, Google is assembling productivity by acquisition — buying compatibility first, then mobile reach — and the competitive axis for office suites shifts from desktop licences to who edits whose files, on which devices, through the cloud.
- For enterprise and education buyers, suite selection increasingly turns on any-device access and bundled cloud services rather than per-seat desktop licensing, eroding the moat that made Office a default purchase.
The trend: Office productivity is migrating from a desktop licence tied to Windows toward cloud suites that compete on mobile reach and cross-format compatibility, with acquisitions like DocVerse and Quickoffice as the building blocks.