BEIJING, July 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Microsoft has gone head to head with Google as it announced on Monday it is to release a free Internet based version of its Office software. The online Office will compete directly with Google's well established Docs suite which launched three years ago. Microsoft's application will include lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote when it ships next year.

    The news comes after Google last week announced it was to launch a free operating system to directly compete with the software giant. But some analysts fear it may cost Microsoft an enormous amount in lost revenue. The Wall Street Journal estimated it could "put at risk as much as 4 billion U.S. dollars in revenue." Nevertheless it is considered to be a bold move in attempt to keep people using Microsoft products.

    "The software giant has woken up," Emil Protalinksi, of online blog Arcs Technica, writes. "It is promising to know that such a traditional software company is responding to the 'threat of the cloud' to its core business by embracing it." Investors appeared to like Microsoft's move and boosted shares by almost 3.8 percent higher to close at 23.23 dollars.

    Microsoft say that its 400 million customers who are Windows Live consumers will have access to the Office web applications at no cost. The Office Web Apps are designed to work with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Apple's Safari. Google's Chrome will probably work, but support isn't listed in the official documents from Microsoft at present. However the software based version will not be available for Apple Macs until late 2010 at the earliest. For PC users a beta version may be out by the end of 2009 with the complete product pushed out by 2010. There has been no word on cost and while Microsoft have highlighted the new advances of its new suite, it may be difficult to draw people away from what they already use.

    Google docs is already well established and allows users to create Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and presentations. In addition they may be 'shared', such that other users may collaborate on a particular document. Outside of the cloud, there are several well established and free applications which are compatible with Microsoft created documents. OpenOffice, owned by Sun Microsystems, is almost entirely compatible with Microsoft documents. While some netbooks come with Microsoft Office, it is often a trial version, thus for many consumers the choice of paying for the full version or downloading a free utility is already made.

    Google Docs is not the only competitor Microsoft is facing. There are several other cloud-based systems which compare favorably with the software giant, Zoho and Slideshare being just two. The jury is still out as to whether Microsoft will win this latest war, but it will have a lot of catching up to do in order to push out the likes of Google Docs.

    (Agencies)