I read on GigaOm Pro last week a headline asking “Why Microsoft Office Web is good for its competitors” and it got me thinking that this may be the best thing that could happen to cloud computing.  The king of software themselves are giving the word that they believe in and want to put their money behind software that runs in the cloud.  Could anything be sweeter for the industry then the Microsoft behemoth saying they think this might just work out?

Microsoft is giving the validity to the idea of keeping your data / apps in the cloud and that means everything to the corporate world that live by what MS offers them.  In my mind every employee of a company that is using Office Web is not going to flinch when they consider signing up for Google Docs now.  Zoho for example is going to gain WAY more then they will lose from this.  It may not look like it now but just consider the blue collar employee who now understands and will use a cloud based word processor or spread sheet app.

So good for MS to take this step and even better for it’s competitors in the cloud computing industry.  MS just said hey we think it’s good so you should give Google Docs a try.