In case you missed it, Google and Sun announced a partnership today. You can read an article at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9581591/. Although the official announcement just covered including the Google toolbar as part of the Java download there is a lot of speculation about Google distributing OpenOffice. What is not mentioned in the article is that if Google does start supporting OpenOffice there will probably be a lot more people take a look at it. Although I doubt that there will be any major uptake in usage at the corporate world I think a lot of users including my parents might use if if it were very easy to use and relatively inexpensive. Of course there is also the changed UI in Office "12" that will require a new way of thinking that might make people flock to OpenOffice if it maintains the familiar menu structure.

I think the real danger for Microsoft Office is that most people don't use even a small part of the Office Suite. (I remember one of the presenters at PDC saying that over half of the requests for new features in Office are for things that are already there. People just don't know how to find them.) I mean how many people really write complicated macros or try to figure out all of the formatting options. For most people just being able to change the font, text size, bold, italics, and underline will meet their needs. If people get used to OpenOffice at home it will only be a little while before they start wanting to use it in the office. Once businesses start moving off of Office in large numbers Office could be in trouble. WordPerfect had the word processing market in hand but didn't move to Windows fast enough and they also didn't have an integrated suite for a long time. Any kind of misstep by Microsoft could mean that Office could suffer the same fate.

Whether Google starts to distribute OpenOffice and whether Microsoft will respond are both topics of conjecture but one thing is for sure. If there is competition in any area, especially around one of the "cash cows" for Microsoft they have historically responded with lots of money and developers. Any time Microsoft feels threatened by competition they do incredible things to make sure that they stay on top and we as consumers will benefit from new features.