Some mild rumors have been surfacing about the potential for Google purchasing online productivity suite provider ThinkFree, a South Korean company that offers ThinkFree Online with Microsoft Office file format compatibility and other features.
If anyone else suggested Google should get together with ThinkFree before this article I wrote in September 2005, I’d like to hear from them because that would be some mighty fine prognosticating and it deserves some attention.
The chatter has been heard in various Google+Search class=bluelink>corners and dark alleys of the Internet, that Google and its hoard of cash, equivalents, and marketable securities could be applied generously to ThinkFree, which has offices in Korea and the US.
ThinkFree would give Google what many have predicted – a viable and potent alternative to Microsoft Office that could give Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie a bad case of the Rice Krispie spewies over their breakfast tables.
That would supersede the work accomplished by Google’s Spreadsheet developers, as well as the integration duties engineers performed to make the Writely acquisition function nicely under the big G label.
A competitive company does recognize when a need exists to fold a weak hand, especially when there’s a chance to get a better one next round. Those who may see it as a Microsoft killer will miss the true benefit Google could gain, as another potential revenue stream.
Doing that will require Google to offer true support for ThinkFree, should it be acquired and repurposed for the SMB market. Support can be expensive for the provider, which is why so many companies, new and old, have been driving support initiatives to newsgroups and websites.
Google would have to find a happy medium there, to provide enough handholding to get clients up and running without creating an onerous expense that eats into earnings. They should be able to accomplish that.
There’s another reason why a Google acquisition, performed with plenty of fanfare and buzz, would benefit the search advertising giant. In Asia, South Korea is a very valuable market. Google’s first foreign-language blog was in Korean, so it’s obvious they respect the country’s tech-savvy userbase.
Bringing ThinkFree into the arms of the Googleplex could be a significant win in the hearts and minds of those users, provided they respect the ThinkFree brand and emphasize how important an acquisition will be to an already-dominant firm.
Google has only enjoyed a slim piece of the Korean search market. Investing in and publicizing a Korean technology asset to the world could help Google gain a stronger foothold than the one it has now, assuming they can better match the Google experience to Korean search expectations too.
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.