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.
