Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

From Internet News, via Tom Peters wire service: Next Up, Google Office?

“Microsoft’s CEO allegedly said he’d crush Google, his company’s rival in search, and the lucrative ad business it engenders. On Tuesday, Google may strike back at Redmond’s heart: Microsoft Office.”

Google and Sun are holding a press conference at which they’re expected to announce a collaboration to bring StarOffice productivity applications to Google users.

Hmmm…couple of things come to mind. 1. Everything goes in cycles - the market dominator of today is the has-been of tomorrow. Is this the beginning of the end for Microstuff? 2. Can Google do better at customer support than the Gates crew or companies such as Dell? (”Service avoidance” is already a big problem all across Service America - from credit card companies to computer vendors. Been discussing such in Find-A-Human over at the Church of the Customer blog. ) Most of us couldn’t care less how great a company’s marketing is - or how well the product normally performs - our “moment of truth” is when we can’t get a live human being when we really need help. (Doncha know, printers, computers and software never go haywire when we’ve got plenty of time to fix the problems.)

In any event, I hope this gives us technology users some more and better choices. I love technology (well, not Microsoft Office) - I could never do what I do for a living without it…but when it doesn’t work, our world comes to a screeching, maddening halt. And, I’m really sick of so-called “user friendly” features that just complicate things.