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With the announcement of Microsoft's latest editions of its enterprise software just around the corner, the tech media is abuzz with Google Apps vs. Microsoft debates. And it is not only now, the media has been obsessed with Google vs. Microsoft for a few years now. With Google's web based productivity approach has certainly made a dent in the Microsoft dominated enterprise productivity market, psychological if not actual (Google's actual paid enterprise customers are not that large in number). It is primarily for that reason that Microsoft, and the other leader in the enterprise productivity market - IBM, have been scampering to web enable their traditional on premise products. Resulting in Microsoft BPOS, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Office Web Apps, IBM LotusLive and many other products. In the meantime, Google in equal measure has been upgrading Google Apps constantly. All this has fueled perpetual debates of MS vs. Google that would leave your ears ringing with MS vs. Google even when you're asleep. All this talk creates a myopic view of an either or market, where customers have just two choices - Microsoft or Google. A tech oligopoly. But it couldn't be farther from the truth. There are dozens of segments in the market which are not served best by either Google or Microsoft products. It forgets about the solutions which are better than both Google and Microsoft's products in many areas. It fails to acknowledge solutions like Zoho, HyperOffice and many others which identified the potential of software as a service for the business market much before either Google or Microsoft.
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