Should MS worry just a bit?

As I sit here and test and tweak Google's latest offerings, I wonder if Microsoft should sit up and take notice. No, I don't think Docs & Spreadsheets is going to knock off Office. Microsoft Office is a corporate mainstay, and I don't see that changing. Corporations aren't going to risk data security by storing their docs with Google. When a vector for lawsuits or IP infringement is present, the lawyers won't let them. However, home users may not have such worries. Especially when creating content that they were going to publish anyway. So what if some 'leet hacker sees and exposes to the world my 3 failed drafts of my latest blog post?

So why should MS be a bit worried? Well, MS products gained widespread popularity because of their workplace dominance. This is what drove the home acceptance. However, much to the chagrin of MS a big chunk of home OS and Office use was pirated. They never did too much about it because it helped keep the corporate fees rolling in. Sharing data was only realistically possible when the systems were the same back in those bad old days. Now we have the web and OS neutral web apps. And now here is Google with email, Blogger, Picasa, Calendar, and Docs & Spreadsheets. All on the web and available anywhere, all OS agnostic. Now the home user doesn't need Microsoft near as much. You can feel free to try Apple, dabble in Linux and still have a world of connectivity and productivity available to you. Couple that with Microsoft adding more and more intrusive anti-piracy measures and suddenly there should be a seed of doubt in Microsoft's dominance.

Google is showing they are out to woo the home user with convenience and any talk of a Google OS should be put to bed. Why chain yourself to an OS when you can leverage the web and run anywhere? Let home users and online content creators choose the OS that suits them and be there to provide them a consistent web app experience. It will be a gradual change, but it's a step to an open computing world. This time with few data sharing and communication issues.