The Office Application space is no longer dull - Nick Carr notes that Cap Geminii is pushing Google Apps:

In the clearest sign yet that Google Apps may be about to make the leap from small businesses to large ones, a major systems consulting firm, Capgemini, is announcing today a partnership with Google to push Apps into the enterprise market. Capgemini is incorporating Apps into its outsourcing service for managing companies' PC networks. It currently manages about a million desktops for corporate clients. In a statement that is sure to annoy Microsoft, which has long dominated business PCs with its Office suite, Capgemini says that Google Apps represents "the next-generation communication and collaboration tools [workers] need to manage electronic communications, share and publish information, and stay connected while on the go."

Over on the Mac, iWork has added a spreadsheet, which makes that suite much more compelling as well - and if you run Parallels, you can open Word docs (et. al.) directly into iWork from your Windows mail client.

Microsoft's tidy little office monopoly is getting some actual competition, and from more than one direction. Even if you like MS Office, this is good news - recall that Internet Explorer has only improved when competition (Netscape in the 90's, Firefox now) has shown up.