Microsoft, the operating software giant have decided to target Google after a demo of the new Chromebook featured the user logon name Tom Rizzo. It struck a nerve, as Tom Rizzo is the senior director of online services at Microsoft.

Rizzo has been active in slating the Chrome netbook and when he was informed of the Google demo he decided to speak out. To be fair Rizzo seemed to take it in relatively good spirit, speaking with Network World he said “There is a little fun rivalry between those guys and us.”

On a more serious note he added “But I fundamentally believe Office and Office 365 are much, much better than anything they have to offer.”

He might have a point, because the audience are buying Office 2010 by the millions, with one copy sold every second. This is five times faster than Office 2007 Rizzo said. While Microsoft might be struggling in the mobile world, their software has no problems generating huge sales. The Office 365 limited Beta attracted the interest of 100,000 organisations. Rizzo also pointed out that Microsoft won the contract to move the city and county of San Francisco to Microsoft's cloud-based email.

“When Larry or Sergey or Eric Schmidt go to court or go get their driver's licenses, they'll be using Microsoft technology on the back end to do all those things,” Rizzo said.

He also feels that Google's estimates of huge sales might be wrong “I don't know why customers wouldn't just go get a netbook. It's pretty much the same thing.” he added. Rizzo also feels that ChromeBook users won't be getting a ‘richer functionality' experience with Google's OS, relying instead of Google Docs.

KitGuru says: it is in good fun, but underneath the surface there is an intense rivalry brewing.

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