As computer users start looking more and more towards new ways to save money on applications, it was only a matter of time before Microsoft itself would have to acquiesce and join the crowd. And last week, they made the leap, announcing that Web-based editions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote would be free to use.

But does this announcement mean the beginning of the end for OpenOffice? No.

Clearly, it looks as if the primary competitor Microsoft is going up against is Google, who launched their Apps productivity suite a couple of years ago and announced, a week before Microsoft’s Office 2010 announcement, that they would launch Chrome OS, a direct Windows competitor, in the latter half of 2010.

However, both Microsoft and Google have built their future endeavors on the concept of cloud computing, which is to say that software resources will kept online, as opposed to directly on a person’s computer.

OpenOffice, on the other hand, does not appear to have any immediate plans to move in that same direction. For the moment, it seems that the priority is to expand OOo’s capabilities to bring it even more in line with that of MS Office.

In effect, OpenOffice may turn out to be the big winner in this prospective battle. First, the offline full-scale edition of Office 2010 will most certainlynot be free, while the online edition will be supported by advertising. The prospect of cloud computer may also be a bit daunting for some users. Plus, there will need to be a hard sell for current Google Apps users.

Meanwhile, users looking for a powerful open-source alternative that can be housed on their computers. And once again, OpenOffice will be there.

So, don’t look for OpenOffice to disappear off the planet. If anything, with a few more upgrades, OOo could grab even more market share.