The launch of Office 365, Microsoft’s productivity suite for the cloud may not be a good news for Google, which has been trying to attract business customers with its own cloud- based offering. Microsoft office productivity applications have been the standard in the business community for many decades.

Last year, Google began an effort to make Google Apps a popular cloud-based application to catch up with Microsoft and its popular offline desktop applications suite. With the slow Microsoft’s progress into the cloud, Google had a good start. However, as Microsoft has entered the game, the advantage is no longer significant. Certainly, Google has been in the cloud longer, have plenty of users, but unfortunately not too much income.

On the other hand, Microsoft will bring a range of useful features and offer much more mature apps that users already know and it will play much in its favor. Microsoft announcement on its cloud-based suite is more of a strategic move. It is likely that Microsoft’s plunge into the cloud environment could generate a fierce fight between the two companies, which already have a strong competition in browsers, operating systems and search engine between them.

After all, although Google has been the first to market cloud-based product, most of the company’s revenues still come from search engine and Google Apps has not proven to be a money maker. On the contrary, Microsoft may have come late to the frontline, but its applications suite, Microsoft Office, is already known throughout the world and represents the bulk of Microsoft’s revenue. If history is an indicator, Microsoft is well positioned for success in the cloud, an area with highly focused productivity and collaboration. In the 90’s, Microsoft disregarded the importance of the Internet, by allowing competitors, like Netscape to have a strong share in the browser market. However, the giant was able to shift positions rapidly, creating what has become the standard for web browsers, Internet Explorer.