Microsoft recently announced that it will allow people to access the Microsoft Office suite for free through a Web browser.

While this is a solid move forward for Microsoft, they are coming to the table just a bit late.

Its competitor, Google, has been in the cloud for quite a bit longer.

With Microsoft Office 2010, users will be able to access documents from anywhere in the world through a Web browser. This is known as cloud computing, where software and data is stored on a server accessible from anywhere you can find Internet.

For those who might think Microsoft is a pioneer in this market, I raise you one Google Docs. For quite some time now, Google has offered products directly comparable to the standard suite of programs found in Microsoft Word.

You can word process, run complex equations in a spreadsheet and even create decent looking presentations. The only roadblock to accessing these features is a Gmail account, but the account is one of the reasons I love using the programs.

Interconnectivity.

Almost everything I do can be managed with Google.

My e-mail, calendar and now all the documents I write are available and connected. I can invite my friend to edit a paper that I just wrote without having to e-mail an attachment. The corrections are right there in the document, and edits no longer have to be merged.

My personal productivity has gone up considerably, as all of my work is easily accessible. Perhaps this last paragraph sounds like I’m getting distracted from the point.

But I’m not.

You see, for users of Gmail (there are around 91 million of us, according to USA Today), these new Microsoft cloud tools will mean nothing.

I don’t want all my documents go through a separate Hotmail account. I ditched Hotmail when I left high school. Besides, any Microsoft Office attachment received in Gmail can be opened and converted within Google.

Google: 1. Microsoft: 0.

Credit must be given to Microsoft for trying, at least. Resisting the change is probably worse than embracing it late. Perhaps I’m being a bit too pessimistic. For all I know, the free online version of Word could far surpass anything Google could offer.

If Microsoft is to maintain the status quo, however, the online version will still find a way to delete all my data and crash my Mac.