Slashdot Mirror
Google Office Still in the Wings?
Rob writes "Ajax Office, a proposed project to create an open source, web-based suite of office
applications, has fallen by the wayside. But the project's founder Paolo Massa is
convinced that not only will there be successful open source projects in the space, but
that it is only a matter of time before the likes of Google or Yahoo! launch a web-based
office suite of their own - going up against Microsoft Office but in the online sphere.
"If you think about it, it would mean having access to your office
documents from any browser," he told Computer Business Review, outlining his view
that a provider could enable the creation and storage of office documents on their
web servers. "I think someone will do this within a year," he said."
I would prefer to keep my documents secure and local. And I have Open Office to solve the open source office suite issue. (If only they could get vba in it)
Why is this article getting play on Slashdot?
It's just an interview with someone who tried to build a Web-based office suite and couldn't pull it off. Then the guy speculates that "someone else will do it within a year" with absolutely zero evidence for that contention other than his gut feeling -- he doesn't claim to have talked to any company (Google included) about their plans. Then the journalist takes the guy's wild speculation and stretches it out to Google being the ones who will do it "within a year".
In other words, it's completely unsourced speculation. There's not even enough fact there for it to qualify as "rumor"!
It's bad enough that it's running on CBR's blog, but why does Slashdot just pass along the article, complete with wildly misleading headline? Aren't "editors" supposed to be more about critical thinking than regurgitation?
Oh, I forgot, this is Slashdot. Never mind.
Read my blog.
From dumb terminal to workstation, back to dumb terminal... ah, the odd cycle of computer technology.
Online document editing has many major draw-backs
1) The "online" bit. A large proportion of office document editing is done "off-line" either in-flight, on trains or in establishments with restricted internet access.
2) Printing - You need much tighter integration between the printer and the browser than currently available, its no good generating an A4 PDF when my printer is A3.
3) Its an ASP - Application Service Provider, there have been a few big successes (SalesForce.com for instance) but mainly they tanked. In the office apps perspective its hard to see the business driver, if its just a cost thing then Open Office would win.
4) What do my clients use? Any browser based solution has to have a standard integration and export to MS Office, this is the normal practice and made doubly so now that Google searches all those files on your desktop for you.
5) What is all the power on my desktop for? Dual Core AMD, 2GB RAM etc etc... Office isn't exactly a performance problem.
ASPing Office was suggested by Microsoft and it tanked, its been suggested before and it tanked. I think Google are spot on to not continue funding an idea that has tanked several times before.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Where I work, everything that gets stored on the hard drives at work is immediately considered For Official Use Only and most companies that do business with DoD or other Government agencies have very strict rules on information storage (classification notwithstanding). If a web-based Office Suite were to succeed, there would have to be major security for it to be considered for use by most of the US Government and it's many (many) contractors. It's possible, but whoever tried to implement this idea would have to keep in mind that lots of big-name companies are tied by these restrictions.
If one could develop a web-based office suite that met the needs of DoD/Dod contractors, then I think a lot of them might go for that idea. It would allow a military unit in Iraq and a command post at Ft. Bragg to view/edit their files without having to worry about transmitting them back and forth; likewise for contractors who have to travel all over the country. I know some contractors who travel 100+ days/year, so having a central repository of files would be excellent for them. I think if the security needs can be met, web-based office might just work. It'll be interesting to see if anyone can actually implement it though.
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
And if JavaScriptOffice.org gets hacked, or an overzealous sysadmin blocks access to the site, or your DSL goes down, you can't access any of your documents. I trust my laptop, with its back-up data, far more than I'd trust an Internet-based service.
For more information, click here.
Do you really want government officials, Masters and PhD students, top scientists and engineers, buisnesses (and business employees) etc... to use a web-based office application?
That will never ever happen. Think of the security! What if some hacker hacks away and downloads tons of sensitive documents?
As for Google Office, we all know that they have a bit of a shady GMail privacy policy. Now you want me to trust them with my personal documents?
Imagine a service in the future offered by Google that gives employers the tool to find out more information on a specific person. Imagine the amount of information that can be deduced from all the things you did on Google. They can know a lot about "who you are", your personality etc... just from all the interactions you do with Google itself. Six years ago, everyone didn't realize that Google will be able to search every nook and cranny of the Internet, and that it'll be able to dig up your personal message board posts you thought would be too hidden from a search engine.
You have no idea what the future holds in terms of the advancements in data mining technologies.
I cannot trust Google with my documents... the buck stops right here, right now.
I still don't understand why you're willing to pay $120-$150 per year for a JavaScriptOffice.org lease, plus ($30/month for T-Mobile Hotspot access, $3/hour for Internet cafe access, etc.), but you can't be bothered to tote a cheap laptop around. You don't have to "look at a laptop" while sitting in business class; put your $500 Dell laptop in a case and throw it under the seat in front of you.
I agree that having business documents everywhere is attractive, but computers are just too cheap to make the economics work. I started playing with Backpack the other day for web-based note management, and it may yet prove to be the first of this huge "JavaScript Office" trend, but right now I don't see any reason to use Word and Excel rewritten in JavaScript for a significant charge.
For more information, click here.
What are you saying now to? The parent poster said nothing about Java, he said JavaScript. You do realize that's what AJAX is based on, right? Javascript!
Throw the bums out!
If someone made this OSS, then coudln't people be free to put it on THEIR server? I don't see any reaosn why we couldn't run the thing on your server and then just access it from anywhere. Wouldn't this be perfect? Security and web access?
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
who wanted to keep their money in banks?