Microsoft Trashes Google Docs in New Commercials
Microsoft's latest ad campaign pulls no punches.
Microsoft hasn't been shy about criticizing Google over the last few months. The company's been telling users they're getting 'Scroogled' since November. However, this time around, Redmond is taking a different tack. The company has just released two new commercials about Office 365 vs. Google Docs.
The first is titled "Google Docs isn't worth the gamble" and warns users that "converting Office files into Google Apps is a gamble."
"When you open a Microsoft Office application, you know what you're going to get," Microsoft's Jake Zborowski wrote on the company's Office 365 blog, later adding, "Productivity software is built to help people communicate. It's more than just the words in a document or presentation; it's about the tone, style and format you use to convey an overall message. People often entrust important information in these documents -- from board presentations to financial analyses to book reports. You should be able to trust that what you intend to communicate is what is being seen."
The video then shows two guys in a casino trying to decide what kind of game they should play. One of them spies a 'Google Docs' table and heads over with a little encouragement from the guy working the table. The game is simple: Open a Microsoft Office document with Google Docs with no loss of data or any format discrepancies and win. No prizes for guessing how it went (it is a Microsoft commercial after all), but check it out for yourself below:
The next commercial aims to show users how using Google Docs can harm your productivity. The ad features a group of guys playing half-court basketball together. On one team, there's Microsoft Office. The other has a less athletic looking Google Docs. Google Docs eventually admits that he's 'got some deficiencies' after a team mate points out that he is impacting productivity to the point where the rest of the team has to work harder.
"Many basic features are missing from Google Docs like grammar check, support for columns, custom date formats, slide numbers, and mail merge," writes Zborowski. "Add to that the many more advanced capabilities missing from Google Docs like Power Pivot, SmartArt, watermarks, master slides, image editing, slicers, and information rights management -- and you watch your productivity start to decline."
Check out the second commercial here:
It's not clear if Microsoft plans to air these ads on TV or if they'll be internet only. You can see Microsoft's blog posts on the ads here and here.

For personal use, I would say that Google Docs has never been a replacement for MS Word. A supplement would be a better description. I don't need MS Word all the time, just when I'm doing something that requires it. For a great many things, I can just type it up in Google Docs (or, heaven forbid, Gmail) and send it from there.
And that seems to be what they're conveniently omitting. Google Docs is way faster than opening up Word, and in the majority of the cases where I use a Word processor, that's all I need.
As for incompatibility -- isn't that just as much a Microsoft flaw as a G Docs flaw? Doesn't that imply that MS has problems making things that everyone else can open?
So my recommendation today...use what you're used to because there are pros/cons to each. For those that are trying to use collaboration, you have to use skydrive. Changes by multiple users are reflected immediately like Googledoc. Working on the file in Office just means the app is constantly uploading/downloading. So use the Office webapps for collaboration, it is a must.
For personal use, I would say that Google Docs has never been a replacement for MS Word. A supplement would be a better description. I don't need MS Word all the time, just when I'm doing something that requires it. For a great many things, I can just type it up in Google Docs (or, heaven forbid, Gmail) and send it from there.
And that seems to be what they're conveniently omitting. Google Docs is way faster than opening up Word, and in the majority of the cases where I use a Word processor, that's all I need.
As for incompatibility -- isn't that just as much a Microsoft flaw as a G Docs flaw? Doesn't that imply that MS has problems making things that everyone else can open?
So my recommendation today...use what you're used to because there are pros/cons to each. For those that are trying to use collaboration, you have to use skydrive. Changes by multiple users are reflected immediately like Googledoc. Working on the file in Office just means the app is constantly uploading/downloading. So use the Office webapps for collaboration, it is a must.
Seriously though, bring Office 365 price down a notch, or at least come out with a 2 computer plan for $50/yr instead of a 5 computer plan for $100/yr. Or bring back the Office Home and student for use on 2-3 computers like it use to be, because as it stands now, as a home user, Libre/Open Office really isn't that bad if I ever need an upgrade. Plus I already own office 2007, so why should I upgrade?
Works on everything, supports everything, reads and writes everything.
Documents between different versions of office aren't compatible
The cloud service is horrible and barely works
A corporate environment is even worse, you can't open a report some using another version sent, converting takes forever and borks the formats and formulas
Google Docs works everywhere
It's fairly reliable
Anyone can open it
Google Docs is still a little basic but it will do everything that you need. If there's a feature that you can't find you should be using something a little more professional than either