07 January 2009 | Author: Yasmin Sulaiman

Apple's iWork.com: a Google Docs killer?

In a high profile announcement at this year's Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco, Apple has announced that it is launching iWork.com, an online version of its application suite, in beta. The application will let users share, edit and make live comments to documents online, and will even offer functionality for multiple users to edit one document simultaneously.

It's a move that's sure to have Google and Microsoft on tenterhooks as the finished version of iWork.com will be in direct competition with their own applications: Google Docs and Office Live Workspace. But does Apple really have the know-how in the applications market to make a dent in the burgeoning cloud computing potential of the Mountain View behemoth or the Redmond colossus?

In some respects, iWork.com looks likely to benefit from the growing awareness and demand that the success of Google Doc's remote hosting facilities has created in the online world since its launch in 2006. It's an enthusiasm that seems to have benefitted Microsoft's Office Live Workspace too - six months after its release in early 2008, the site boasted a million registered customers.

Apple's online suite will offer a similar range of programmes, including word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation software. What's more, the beta launch is likely to bring Apple's iWork programmes to a much larger audience than just Mac OS users, who occupy around ten per cent of the software market as opposed to Windows' 88.7 per cent share (source: Net Applications Inc, Jan 2009).

However, there is one - potentially fatal - drawback. Once it's out of beta, users will have to pay to use iWork.com - a move that is likely to deter clients in droves, considering both Google and Microsoft's offerings are free. It's this single factor that indicates that the rivalry between iWork.com and Google Docs is unlikely to be anything like that currently seen between Google's Android mobile OS and the iPhone - a wildly successful Apple product that also made its debut at Macworld in 2007.

Many industry pundits may be holding back their conclusions until the beta version has been given a thorough testing. But whatever the verdict, the launch of iWork.com is sure to go some way towards proving to both Google and Microsoft that Apple aims to be a serious competitor in the online field and not just a pretty face.

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