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Then, if you fast forward a few years, versions of Wordperfect from Novell and then Corel took on the brunt of the MS Office challenge.

But as we fast forward again a few years after that, the start of the ‘software as a service’ era has brought us a range of Office alternatives, including Zoho, ThinkFree Office and now the integrated Google Apps offering, which comes in two flavors – a free edition perfect for home users, and a US $50 per year ‘Premium Edition’ aimed at business and enterprise customers, or for home consumers simply wanting more storage, with the free version offering 2Gb compared with 10Gb for the Premium edition.

This is a move that was long expected of Google, and now, it has finally happened. The web based software works so well that companies have not only considered making the switch, a handful either have or are in the process of converting across - with plenty more now considering their options.

For those companies, the appeal of having all that ‘office app and email’ infrastructure handled by someone else, which in this case is Google, is just one less thing that a company has to worry about.

Of course, there’s always the concern that the service might ‘go down’, causing people to lose access to their information until Google gets Google Apps up and running again. But for businesses, Google has offered a service level agreement that guarantees any downtime will be as absolutely minor as possible, and if suffered, will be compensated for.

One way Google can get around this is by offering downloadable versions of individual Google Apps that can store a copy of your most used files on your own computer system in case of downtime. Already the ThinkFree Office online suite offers downloadable versions that let you compose documents and perform other office software tasks without needing to be online.

Still, downtime is inevitable, but this is a problem that is well known to eventually occur, so no company choosing to exclusively use Google’s infrastructure and software platforms will be unaware of this possibility. It’s also something that will happen to anyone that offers or will this kind of service in the future – even Microsoft.

So, what about Google using Google Apps to grow the revenue bottom line? Some are saying that Google is finally charging for software - but it's hardly the first time Google has done this, with Google even selling hardware. Want to know more? Read onto page 2 for the conclusion...