"We believe Apple's iCloud product could be a game changer," MGI Research writes for Seeking Alpha. "iCloud fires a shot across the bow directed squarely at Microsoft's Office365 and Google's Small Business Apps cloud productivity offerings because iCloud provides a near frictionaless adoption path for Apple iOS device customers. It is quite likely that the iCloud announcement serves notice to investors in highly visible upstarts Dropbox, Sugarsync, Evernote and others that their free ride is over."

"Amongst the raft of features announced by Apple at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, the announcement of iCloud was in our view the most significant. It is also the one announcement that got somewhat lost in press coverage as the iTunes in the cloud music sharing service overshadowed what is in our view a real game changer for the personal and groupware productivity solutions markets," MGI Research writes. "iCloud, in our view, is the first cloud solution from a major vendor that has a clear brand identity; an understandable, compelling offer; and is likely to re-shape multiple markets in the next 12 months."

MGI Research writes, "From here on, [with Apple's ad-free iCloud], any individual professional or a small business or a group can easily and freely establish a cloud-based, shared and synchronized office environment. This is a direct shot at Google Docs as well as at Microsoft. With the simple announcement of iCloud as a free productivity solution, Apple has quickly outpaced Microsoft and Google, both of whom have been trying now for a few years to carve out a viable productivity cloud strategy and are now forced to play catch up."

Much more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Fred Mertz" for the heads up.]