MS Office sells for $20, if not for $15 (depending on your negotiatiing skills), if not for free (if have to buy hardware from the seller and have been a regular customer). I know people int the US other parts of the western world may be feeling cheated, but that's the way in India. I am sure China would not be very different.
These are not some survey findings but I had a casual conversation with 47 small business owners. Small business for the purpose of this post is defined as business owning 5 computers or less.
The results of my conversations were, 6 out of the 47 had transitioned from pirated MS Office to Google docs in the last 3 months.
Its interesting that a free Google docs with limited features and functionality and an environment of limited and costly bandwidth sees a pull from small businesses.
I wonder what would be the scenario when Google docs are enterprise ready by next year as as promised by Dave Girouard.
The cloud is here, and Microsoft needs to be ready for some dark days ahead.
