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Microsoft responded to news of Google's arrangement with CapGemini to place Google Apps on desktops with a ten-point list of questions companies should consider if they think of switching.

Google, CapGemini Deal Panics Microsoft

There's nothing like a full-blown case of The Fear to bring out a point by point refutation of the client/server ecology of online applications. Microsoft's list of corporate-speak appeared on Mary Jo Foley's blog, attributed to a company spokesperson, and it's all about keeping enterprises in line.

Microsoft's fear is well-justified. Its Office productivity suite represents one of the company's two major revenue streams, with Windows being the other. Office is as close to a fixture on corporate desktops as is the web browser.

We aren't going to dissect Microsoft's list of concerns point by point, because there's only one that really matters. That would be point number five:

Google’s apps only work if an enterprise has no power users, employees are always online, enterprises haven’t built custom Office apps - doesn’t this equal a very small % of global information workers today? - On a feature comparison basis, it’s not surprising that Microsoft has a huge lead.

It's a disingenuous bit of misdirection. Every office of any significant size will have some people who need more features, and others who only need the basics.

Consider the typical cubicle farm, where a vast number of employees work high-turnover jobs with minimal pay and skill requirements. These are people who aren't going to be generating elegant documents with clip art, tables of contents, and extensive footnotes.

Now consider the typical corporate masters, who can save a slew of licensing fees by dumping Office from a hundred desktops, or more. In today's environment of ruthless job and cost cutting, one can easily imagine a scenario where executives in industries with a lot of cube dwelling folks run the numbers once or twice.

And doing so, look a little closer at Google and its $50 per year license for Google Apps. Microsoft has reason to be concerned.