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In Google's first decade online, Google and Microsoft didn't seem to be the kind of companies that would compete directly with each other. Google's main product is an Internet search engine and the company's revenue comes from ad sales. Microsoft's main products are an operating system, office productivity suite and other software. Where's the conflict?

• Microsoft Access Alternative Software
• Microsoft Access Alternative Online
• Free Alternative To Microsoft Office

Google Docs Google Docs, which is easily the most popular Microsoft Word alternative on this list, is free to everyone with a Google account. You can also add a number of add-ons built by Google or third parties, which extend the functionality of Google Docs. The freely available Microsoft Office alternative can be beneficial to home. Google Workplace is another Microsoft Office alternative worth considering, as it's development by the internet behemoth Google specifically for collaborative and group work. The three key tools.

Today, there are several points where Microsoft and Google cross paths. The two have taken each other on in their native product categories, and expanded into new markets as well.

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Microsoft's direct competitor attempt is a search engine called Bing. Microsoft launched Bing in 2009 as a step above its Live Search and MSN search engines. Its features are similar in look, feel, and function to Google's search. It hasn't boomed in the marketplace yet, though: As of February 2010, Nielsen reported that Microsoft search engines (Bing, Live Search, and MSN) all shared a mere 12.5 percent of online searches, nowhere near Google's whopping 65 percent [source: Nielsen]. It's still not close, even if you add in Microsoft's new 10-year search engine partner Yahoo, at 14 percent.

Google has made an attempt to compete with Microsoft's Office software suite with its Web-based productivity software called Google Docs. Google Docs includes a word processor, spreadsheet application, slideshow presentation maker, and even a form builder and drawing tools, all with the portability of access from any Web browser. It also makes it easy to collaborate with others on a project, with the ability for both users to edit the same document, even at the same time. Google Docs is not as robust and feature-rich as Microsoft Office software, though, and depends on Google for privacy and availability.

Microsoft fired back at Google with Office Live Workspace (OLW), free online collaboration versions of its Microsoft Office products. OLW readily works with files in proprietary Microsoft Office formats for documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Plus, the SkyDrive gives you 25 GB of space in which to store files [source: Microsoft]. But Microsoft didn't just put OLW together overnight; it leveraged the power of its well-established (though costly) SharePoint software to create the new free Web service [source: Foley].

Both Google and Microsoft have mobile operating system platforms. Yet neither company is close to overtaking the iPhone from Apple, which has close to 60 percent of the market [source: Quantcast]. However, Google Android is also growing rapidly, and it already has twice the share of Windows Mobile [source: Net Applications]. Will Windows Mobile survive? Microsoft is cleverly looking past Android and taking aim directly at the iPhone in promoting its Windows Phone 7, to be released in late 2010.

Besides the mobile platforms, both Google and Microsoft offer Web-based e-mail platforms. Both are investing millions of dollars into cloud computing solutions. And both recognize the growing importance of the Internet for the average consumer. Google may have an advantage over Microsoft because it's a Web-based company; however, Microsoft has decades of experience in application development and consumer research. Let's look at some of the strengths and weaknesses of each company.

Document editing and sharing tools are essential for all businesses these days. Google Docs and Office 365 are the popular choices in this market. However, with growing concern for data privacy and control, many people are looking for alternatives.

In this post, we shall see four popular open source document editing apps. Because they are open source, they can be installed and run on your server, giving you complete control of your data. We will cover the different formats, features and workflows supported by each app. This will help you make an informed decision on which app to use.

Alright, let's dive right into it!

Collabora Online

Collabora Online is a promising attempt to bring the fantastic LibreOfficesuite to the cloud. The project is developed by a large group of engineers who also work on LibreOffice core. The way it works is that LibreOffice is run as a service on the server. This service provides rendering and editing functionality to the browser. As such, it supports all the document formats LibreOffice supports, recently even EPUB export has been added. The editing UX is fairly similar to the LibreOffice desktop application.

One installation caveat is that the app does not store or manage documents. Instead, it is intended to be used alongside a document management app like Nextcloud. It does this by implementing a WOPI-like protocol. If you run Nextcloud, just install the Collabora Online plugin and connect the plugin with the Collabora app to edit and share documents within Nextcloud.

ONLYOFFICE

OnlyOffice is developed by Ascensio System SIA from the Baltics and is a complete office suite written in NodeJs. It comes with a great, modern-looking user interface. OnlyOffice comes in two flavors - Document server and Community server. The community server is a full-fledged office suite including a mail server, CRM, contacts and calendar. The Document server provides text document, spreadsheet and presentation editors.

Similar to Collabora Online, OnlyOffice document server does not store documents on its own. Instead, it integrates with existing apps like Nextcloud as a file editor using the WOPI protocol. If you run Nextcloud, just install the OnlyOffice plugin and connect it with the OnlyOffice document server.

Microsoft Access Alternative Software

CodiMD

CodiMD provides realtime collaborative markdown notes on all platforms. The story of CodiMD is quite complex. The company HackMD created two versions of their editing software - HackMD CE (Community Edition) and HackMD EE (Enterprise Edition). HackMD had taken a step back from the development of the HackMD CE project and the open source community started moving it forward. To avoid confusion, it was renamed from HackMD CE to CodiMD. After a while, there was a lack of agreement between HackMD and the open source community as to who owns the project. As a result, the project was forked again into it's own organization.

CodiMD is easily the best markdown document editor out there. Documents can be shared privately as well as publicly. Multiple people can work together on the same document with great visual feedback. You can even follow the current cursor position of other editors in real time!

Additional highlight features are:

• Markdown slideshow support through reveal.js
• MathJax support for beautiful mathematics displays

Etherpad

Etherpad is a highly customizable Open Source online editor providing collaborative editing in really real-time.

Etherpad is the oldest of the four projects in this article. The editor is designed to be embedded within other projects and thus it is likely that you already have used it in one way or another. One of Etherpad's strengths is the vast number of plugins that can be installed. To get an idea, check out their officially supported plugin list.

On top of collaborative writing, Etherpad has a built-in chat to allow users to talk to each other.

Supported Text Document Formats

Conclusion

Both Collabora Online and ONLYOFFICE are full blown office suites for word processing. They are fully capable of replacing Google Docs. If you are looking for a Google Docs alternative, I recommend trying out OnlyOffice. It's slick and polished user interface will help you switch away from Google Docs without a second thought.

CodiMD and Etherpad are targeted at technical users who prefer simple editors. These work great when trying to build a knowledge base in your organization. The multi-user editing functionality these apps provide is extremely useful during conference calls where participants can work on a single document together.

Try them out

Microsoft Access Alternative Online

Cloudron is a platform that makes it easy to run and manage web apps like WordPress, Nextcloud, GitLab on your server. OnlyOffice, CodiMD, Etherpad, Nextcloud are all available on the Cloudron Store and can be easily installed on your server with a few clicks.

Free Alternative To Microsoft Office

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