When the big boy kicks sand in your face, you can either go home and sulk or make jokes about what big feet the bully has. You’ve gotta love upstart Zoho for taking the second course of action.
An early provider of online productivity applications, Zoho has moved quickly to build out a [substantial suite of integrated applications](/software/article.php/3817781/Zoho+Mobilizes+Online+Apps.htm) that compete with Google and others in the cloud computing space.
Zoho’s CEO Sridhar Vembu had an entertaining [blog post ](http://blogs.zoho.com/general/microsoft-calls-zoho-the-fake-office-so-does-that-mean-bing-is)yesterday responding to a Microsoft executive’s reference to “fake Office” products. Earlier this week, [Microsoft announced price cuts ](/software/article.php/3846831/Microsoft+Targets+Salesforce+and+Oracle.htm)to its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) by a third, bringing the price down from $15 per user to $10 per month. Google’s App Suite, by comparison, costs $50 per user, per year.
Vembu quotes Ron Markezich, corporate vice president of Microsoft Online, as noting the company offers a scaled-down version of BPOS for $36 a year. And furthermore “…we’re not seeing any inclination that Zoho or Google or Zimbra or any other of those offering fake Office capabilities can replace [Microsoft Office].”
**That was all too much of a red flag for Vembu not to charge after:**