An experienced software player that understands enterprise needs, or an innovative Web giant? A hybrid online-offline software model customized to company needs, or a refreshingly hands-free, low-management approach to desktop applications?

These are the choices CIOs face when, in about a year, there will be for the first time two big companies hawking Web-based desktop productivity applications: Microsoft with its upcoming Office Web suite, and Google with its online apps. In recent interviews, executives managing these efforts at both companies explained why they think they'll win the enterprise race.

Microsoft likes to dismiss Google and other online apps as built for consumers. Its Office Web is built foremost for business use, said Ron Markezich, VP of Microsoft Online, citing security-oriented choices such as the ability to host the software in one's own data centers, or on dedicated servers within Microsoft's data centers.

Not necessarily so, says Dave Girouard, president of Google Enterprise. There are two million businesses of all sizes using Google Apps, and the company is "scrambling to keep up with demand," he said. When it comes to the Web, Google was "born of this platform, and everything we've ever built is about the Web," Girouard said.

Google has an ongoing road show aimed at attracting companies to Google Apps; it's hitting Washington D.C., Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia, next week, and expects to have dozens of CIOs at each place, including ones from the largest companies in those cities. When Google talks to CIOs directly, they come away believing that "their data is safer inside Google than inside their own data centers," Girouard said.

Google is planning more cloud offerings in coming months and a greater focus on helping customers collaborate on the Web, Girouard said. That doesn't necessarily mean more products, he said, "but expanding the boundaries of products we have today." Voice, video, and more mobile offerings are all in the plans, Girouard said.

Microsoft says it, too, plans to offer customer more choices, and that could result in more complex contracts. Big companies will likely use Office Web apps as part of an overall desktop strategy that also includes paid-for Office desktop licenses.

A large global company might want to use Office Web for geographic regions with good connectivity, and stick with desktop apps in developing regions with less dependable connectivity or in places where government regulations make cloud computing difficult.