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I remember an old Dilbert comic strip in which Dogbert was using his newfound wealth to become a venture capitalist. Of course, his prospect's great idea turned out to be developing a new word processor for Windows, so Dogbert used his money to get the waiter to bludgeon the guy with a stale loaf of bread instead.

That image flashes in my mind every time someone decides to take on MS Office head-on, whether the challenger is called Google, Sun, IBM or whatever. Simply put, it's a tough nut to crack. Having said that, it's not a hopeless fight just because Microsoft happens to be dominant, nor would I shed tears on the Redmond giant's behalf if they indeed DID get dethroned.

One interesting new angle is that of Office Project, which so far has remained largely unchallenged. Well, no more. On-demand vendor and open source player Projity is setting its sights on Microsoft with the a "complete replacement" of MS Office Project. Ambitious? Yes. Odds of success? Slim, but far from DOA.

Projity has done a better job bringing its product to market than competitors such as Project.Net, another open source vendor, says enterprise software analyst Dennis Callaghan of the 451 Group. Time will tell if Projity's luck holds, but it's definitely an initiative to keep an eye on in the year ahead.

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Posted by: Steve Jacobs at October 2, 2007 10:17 AM | Permalink