Recent social enterprise news about Google’s venture into the mobile application world that may have an impact on Microsoft was not lost on the software conglomerate, who is expected to unveil new Microsoft Office software features when it releases Office 15 in a few months.  These improvements to the Microsoft’s most popular software program seem to be directly addressed to Google’s venture into cloud computing and mobile applications. It seems as if Microsoft continues the flurry of acquisitions or changes in order to keep up with the arms race currently being waged in the great social enterprise wars.

Office 15

One rumor circling throughout is that Office 15 may run on the iPad as the more devices the program is able to run on, the better it is for Microsoft.  Touch-friendly software is gaining in popularity as the iPad and iPhone’s gain a market share, and Microsoft seems to be losing some of that market share by not offering an Office version for those systems.

Microsoft 8

Other experts seem to think that Office 15 will be developed to solely run on Microsoft 8, the next version of the operating system that the company plans to release.  The program will be touch-friendly, but since Microsoft’s Surface tablets will be available, there may be no need to create an iPad version.

Google Docs

Microsoft is also aware of the increasing market share Google is obtaining through Google Docs, and the newest program promoted, Google Drive.  The latest social enterprise news has Google Drive, which is a cloud-based storage system, and Google Docs, which allow users to share documents remotely, will eat into Microsoft’s market share significantly over the next few years.

Quick Office

In addition to the market share lost by Microsoft due to Google Drive and Docs, Google has also announced the purchase of Quickoffice, a program that allows users to access Microsoft programs through their mobile device, including the iPhone and Android phones.

As more companies begin diving into social enterprise, the companies who have always had a large share of the market will have to develop methods for keeping up with the smaller ones. What do you think of Microsoft’s Arms Race in the social space?

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