---
title: "Embracing and Extending Microsoft: JotSpot’s Joe Kraus on the Web Office"
date: 2006-03-15
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2006"
    url: "/tag/2006.md"
---

# Embracing and Extending Microsoft: JotSpot’s Joe Kraus on the Web Office

In [this exclusive interview](https://web.archive.org/web/20110813004820/http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=140) with ex-Excite founder and current JotSpot CEO Joe Kraus, I discuss with Joe the Web Office and his ‘Embrace and Extend’ theory.

> “Our goal wasn’t just to build Excel online. In fact I believe that Excel will be ‘Excel Online’. Microsoft isn’t dumb and they get this revolution about ‘software as a service’ much more than they got the Internet revolution. They’re getting it much more quickly. So we believe where Tracker is headed is not only to embrace the capabilities of Excel – you’ve got to do that. But you’ve also got to extend it beyond what Excel is currently envisioned as today, in order to provide lasting value. Because otherwise I think you’re going to get your lunch eaten, over time as Microsoft rolls in.”

\[[Full story on ZDNet…](https://web.archive.org/web/20110813004820/http://blogs.zdnet.com/web2explorer/?p=140)\]

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/embracing_and_e.php))*