Microsoft is continuing its bullish war of words with Google over cloud-based productivity apps, as it looks to encourage more partners to move to Office 365.
Speaking at the Worldwide Partner Conference, chief operating officer Kevin Turner targeted Google as he tried to encourage take-up of Microsoft's cloud products, saying 42,000 partners had been trained in the system - with another 600,000 still to go.
Turner said three years ago headlines suggested Google was going to "wipe out" Microsoft's Office business. "Well, guess what, it hasn't happened," he said. "And more importantly... Office 365 is to Google Apps as Xbox 360 is to Pong."
"I can only describe what Office 365 is in sort of two words," he said. "You could say technically it's three words. But Office 365, ladies and gentlemen, is nothing but a Google butt-kicker, that's all it is."
Turner also claimed Microsoft had a better reputation for privacy than Google. "And when you think about the trouble they're getting into with some of their statements, claiming certain things and allegations that they're dealing with, this is nothing but help to us. We don't scan your email. We're not snooping your Wi-Fi. We're going to continue to do the things we do well, which is help you become more productive."
He said Microsoft's goal is that none of its partners ever lose a deal to Google. "That's the goal, that's the objective."
However, he warned that "too many customers in the world define Microsoft and define our partners by old versions of Windows and old versions of Office".
Other rivals
Turner didn't only target Google, he also called on partners to be more bullish going after customers of Oracle, Salesforce and VMware, criticising the latter's licensing model as too expensive.
He called Apple a "tremendous competitor", but suggested its ecosystem lacked unity across its TV, iPod, iPhone, iPad and Mac devices, saying "the ability to get one application to run across those five platforms is very difficult".
This article originally appeared at pcpro.co.uk
