5 ms·

Selling SaaS means that any sovereign can shut off your markets like a switch. The US couldn't tame Microsoft, and the EU was only able to squeeze out some tok

by alrs 12y ago

Selling SaaS means that any sovereign can shut off your markets like a switch. The US couldn't tame Microsoft, and the EU was only able to squeeze out some token concessions. The move to selling cloud services left them open to getting kneecapped by the PRC, and it just happened.

CapitalistCartr 12y ago
That's a two-way street. Any customer in PRC using that service just lost their Office. In many businesses in the USA that would be catastrophic. OTOH, perhaps it'll encourage adoption of LibreOffice.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  You've never heard of Kingsoft before have you? I'm sure it won't encourage adoption of LibreOffice. MS Office's biggest competitor is pirated MS Office, and then after that Kingsoft. Besides, I'm pretty sure most office users in China are not using 365.
  - JohnTHaller 12y ago
    Kingsoft is a minor player compared to LibreOffice/ OpenOffice. There's not much interest outside of China, Japan, Hong Kong, etc: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=kingsoft%2C%20libreoffice%2C%20openoffice&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=kingsoft%2C%20libreof... Honestly a product that has that much SEO spam all over their website can't be that good. Here's the actual site footer: "Hot Searches: Office Free Office Office 2013 Office 2014 Free Writer Free Spreadsheet Free Presentation Download Office Office 2013 Trial Office 2013 Product Key Office for iPad Office Applications Office Tab Office to PDF Microsoft Office to PDF Word to PDF Excel to PDF PowerPoint to PDF PowerPoint to Word DOCX to DOC DOC to PDF XLSX to XLS PPTX to PPT PPTX to PDF PPT to Text Best Office Suite Free Word Spreadsheet Software Microsoft Office 2010 Free Download Microsoft Office 2007 Free Download Microsoft Office 2003 Free Download Microsoft Office Compatible Suite Microsoft Word Replacement Microsoft Excel Replacement Microsoft PowerPoint Replacement Word Processor TechiSky Software Download iStonsoft Flip PDF"
    - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
      Kingsoft is a major player in mainland China.
      - JohnTHaller 12y ago
        Oh yeah, forgot to include that in the list. Added.

by alrs 12y ago

CapitalistCartr 12y ago

That's a two-way street. Any customer in PRC using that service just lost their Office. In many businesses in the USA that would be catastrophic. OTOH, perhaps it'll encourage adoption of LibreOffice.

seanmcdirmid 12y ago
You've never heard of Kingsoft before have you? I'm sure it won't encourage adoption of LibreOffice. MS Office's biggest competitor is pirated MS Office, and then after that Kingsoft. Besides, I'm pretty sure most office users in China are not using 365.
- JohnTHaller 12y ago
  Kingsoft is a minor player compared to LibreOffice/ OpenOffice. There's not much interest outside of China, Japan, Hong Kong, etc: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=kingsoft%2C%20libreoffice%2C%20openoffice&cmpt=q http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=kingsoft%2C%20libreof... Honestly a product that has that much SEO spam all over their website can't be that good. Here's the actual site footer: "Hot Searches: Office Free Office Office 2013 Office 2014 Free Writer Free Spreadsheet Free Presentation Download Office Office 2013 Trial Office 2013 Product Key Office for iPad Office Applications Office Tab Office to PDF Microsoft Office to PDF Word to PDF Excel to PDF PowerPoint to PDF PowerPoint to Word DOCX to DOC DOC to PDF XLSX to XLS PPTX to PPT PPTX to PDF PPT to Text Best Office Suite Free Word Spreadsheet Software Microsoft Office 2010 Free Download Microsoft Office 2007 Free Download Microsoft Office 2003 Free Download Microsoft Office Compatible Suite Microsoft Word Replacement Microsoft Excel Replacement Microsoft PowerPoint Replacement Word Processor TechiSky Software Download iStonsoft Flip PDF"
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Kingsoft is a major player in mainland China.
    - JohnTHaller 12y ago
      Oh yeah, forgot to include that in the list. Added.