Yeap, you read that right. Microsoft office is the bane of all small business owners, they need it to generate documents and spreadsheets, but it cost a bomb to own. The standard Microsoft Office suite runs well over Rm600, and according to this pricelist from software exchange, Microsoft Office 2010 cost a whooping Rm643. Now Rm643 may not seem like much, but when a laptop/desktop cost just Rm2000, that’s nearly 30% more cash upfront for your software needs.

How is this possible, well Microsoft is offering Office365 worldwide and has even partnered with TM to sell their cloud offerings locally in Malaysia. Office365 is a cloud based version of the Microsoft Office, and it even includes things like email, collaboration and project management software. All of this for just Rm18/month is a pretty sweet deal in comparison to putting down Rm600 per user as a initial capital expense.

UC Berkeley is easily one of the most recognized institutions of learning with 70 Nobel Laureates to their name, so when they say something about tech you’d better listen up. This time however, it’s that big battle in the cloud between Google Apps and Office365 or as I would call it – The Battle for the Doc Cloud. The question is Who Will be the Last Cloud Standing?

As more people start to use cloud based applications, it’s getting more apparent that this little space in the cloud is about to see a boom pretty soon. Now consider this, the Microsoft Business Division unit is the largest revenue contributor to Microsoft, bringing in a total of $5.62 billion in the first quarter of 2011 (that’s the quarter ending sept. 2011). That trumps the Windows division with just $4.87 billion in revenue, now the difference doesn’t look like much (and probably doesn’t to Microsoft), but what that means is that the Business Division (with things like office, lync, sharepoint and exchange) brings in nearly $4 billion dollars of revenue MORE than Windows. Say it with me now people – WHAT THE #$%^.

That’s just one division of one company.