Microsoft has launched a fascinating attack on Google Apps. In this instalment, Microsoft uses the American television series, Moonlighting, which aired during the mid 1980’s, to give us the spoof: Googlighting. Microsoft asks: “What happens when the world’s largest ad sales business tries to sell productivity software on the side?” It’s Microsoft Office versus Google Apps.

You may remember Moonlighting? Jazz singer Al Jarreau performed the show’s theme song, and the show revolved around cases investigated by the Blue Moon Detective Agency and its two partners, Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd, who starred as private detectives.

Google has made significant inroads into Microsoft’s profitable Office division, and Microsoft isn’t at all pleased about this.

This is Googlighting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4EbCkotKPU

Other than it being a case of a well executed “viral” advert, the objective analysis is that Microsoft is anti-Google Apps primarily because it’s feeling the increased pressure from Google’s cloud-based suite of apps including the likes of Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Spreadsheet and other applications.

More and more people use Google apps these days, and just don’t need Office anymore. Microsoft are playing on the old reliability factor, long-term product support and reputation, if you will, versus the constantly changing features they mock Google with implementing.

That’s where the pun on Moonlighting works so well.

Office 365 can be found HERE, and Microsoft asks one to compare it to Google Apps, and see for yourself why Microsoft’s reliability, security and familiarity make it a better product suite overall.

This is Google’s take on Microsoft’s cloud last year:

Office 365 is built for Microsoft. Apps is built for choice. Office 365 is optimized for Windows-based PCs and devices, which reduces your flexibility. Our applications are designed to work well on any device, on any operating system. Desktop, laptop, Chromebook, tablet, smartphone. Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Blackberry, iOS, Windows Mobile. Edit on the go. Share from anywhere.

Microsoft says that long-term success requires a focus and a commitment to building solutions that work for a wide range of people; that it requires complete commitment, not just your spare time, or when you’re Googlighting.

Office 365 is for people who don’t want their documents and mail read, and Google Apps is for those that prefer a more laissez-faire approach, which is in itself also quite ironic.

[Sources: Microsoft, Telegraph, YouTube]