Google buys more people

Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) M&A pursuit continues. The latest purchase is for Zenter, which provides PowerPoint-like presentations online. It's slick software.

Of course, there's lots of buzz that Google wants to take a big chunk of Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) highly lucrative franchise, Office.

But is that really the case?

I had a chance to interview Robert Hoffer, who is a managing director of Newforth Partners.

"There's no doubt that Google Docs wants to be the Microsoft application killer, but what Google is really buying when they purchase these firms is the talent. And that's the name of the game.

"It's not about just taking 20 year old legacy applications such as spreadsheets, word processors, and Powerpoint and putting these ancient apps into the browser. It's about adding unique features and functionality that take the usage of these apps to the next level - the level that being online makes uniquely possible, such as file sharing, group editing, publishing, notifications, revision tracking, document archiving, mashups, etc.

"Microsoft's approach - Microsoft Live - is going to be hard pressed in the consumer space to compete with Google, but Google is going to be hard pressed to compete in the enterprise space with Microsoft."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and the EDGAR-Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.