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."
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.
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
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.
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