“Microsoft Corp. President Steve Ballmer today said the company
plans to make office productivity applications available over the
Web, but the demand for the service among corporate users appears
limited, several observers said.
“Microsoft’s announcement that it will host its Office suite of
applications on the Web follows an announcement by Sun Microsystems
Inc. that it will provide office applications from Star Division,
which it plans to acquire…
“… the exposure of office applications to Web browsers
could be of interest to users of platforms such as Linux,
where Microsoft Office doesn’t run. Wohl said because Linux will
likely gain acceptance regardless of whether Microsoft offers
applications that run on it, Microsoft might as well gain revenue
by offering Office to users.”
“In Thursday’s conference call, Microsoft executives added that
they plan to narrow the focus of the company’s myriad online
ventures so they can focus on driving more traffic to Web access
and content services.”