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Google Declares War on Microsoft
hajmola writes "According to an article in The Inquirer, 'Google has confirmed that it will launch free spreadsheet and word-processing software online and take on Microsoft in one of its biggest markets. Under the deal, Google will allow web users to access Sun's OpenOffice from a toolbar.'" This is full confirmation of a story from Tuesday. Forbes thinks this isn't anything to write home about, while InfoWorld disagrees.
Does anyone know of any previous cases where companies have taken fairly successful desktop applications and made them accessible on the web?
I've read through all the linked articles, and the articles *they* link to, and while the claims of "Google confirms it!" are plentiful, I haven't seen a single named source or attribution for this story.The Forbes story, in fact, still calls any Google online office venture 'speculation'. Where is this 'declaration of war'?
If all the world's a stage, anyone who says they want better lighting spends far too much time in a dark theatre.
Excuse me. StarOffice is Sun's. OpenOffice is ours.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
quite a few people would use a service like this. Not for anything private, but the same sorts of things that I use gmail for. It would be great to have access to documents at home, work, overseas anywhere!
Unpretentious Sydney reviews by unqualified Sydney reviewers
has there been any legitimate hint that they are going to combine to offer spreadsheet/word processing via the web or is all of this just speculation?
Evolution or ID?
Where do I enlist...
(This is one war I think protesters will be null)
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
How does this help me when I have no network connectivity?
All the power to them if they suck some marketshare from Office. But there is one thing about the direction that all this is taking that bothers me.
TFA says it's not the value of the software but rather the service and content that matters. I'd tend to agree with that statement. But a little part of me can't help but dislike and be paranoid about all these web services. Do you really want the future of web processing to be entirely web based and saved on somebody else's machine? G-mail bothers me like that -- even though I pretty much use it exclusively for e-mail now.
I'm not a big fan of making all the desktops in the World into dumb terminals -- even if that means some measure of freedom from Microsoft.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
With all the nifty cool features of Office 12, I was wondering what OpenOffice was going to do to even it up. Let's face it: OpenOffice is pretty much tracking Office 2000. That's not really that bad. I can get all my work done with OpenOffice no problem. This web front end is a killer feature, especially as the new OpenOffice file format becomes more popular.
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
1. Customers win as there are better cheaper choices
2. Google wins because well just because they are google
3. Microsoft because they can now say they have competition
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
Why doesn't Google partner with Sun to release the product in the retail and OEM markets? If you could buy a PC with their office suite pre-installed, it would help them both and send MS into a tizzy. I, for one, am not interested in doing my word processing over the web.
Having your documents online is more conveniant and more secure. You wouldn't have to pass them around to all the different PC's you use. It is more secure because most at home users computers are riddled with virus's and spyware. A good online office solution is why Google's stock price is so high. They may or may not get there but if anyone has the tools and business culture to do it would be Google. To accomplish a good online Office Suite one would have to play well with others in the standards department and be willing to give some control away. Neither of which Microsoft is capable of doing.
What exactly does from a toolbar mean?
Is it a web app?
Where does it run from?
-- You're too stupid to be an atheist.
"Under the deal, Google will allow web users to access Sun's OpenOffice from a toolbar."
So where is OpenOffice, is it on het net or on the pc? If it's on the pc then I don't see a big difference between having an FTP client plus OpenOffice?
Could you please check into your sources a bit before posting? As soon as I saw a link going to theinquirer, I disregarded everything. Even the wording of the article name is designed to piss people off.
These kinds of news stories are becomming as bad as email worms.
Googe has beaten Microsoft to the "software as a service" model. Bill has been talking about how "you have to offer software as a service" for a while now... It's ironic that someone else beat em.
bash: rtfm: command not found
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I'd still like to see a google OS, with enhanced searches. Since we are dreaming and all ... I also want it running their Algorithms, a Unix shell, and Mac design points and GUI.
Oh... and also buy up all the shares in microsoft, then pick the meat off their bones and throw away the carcass.
Just my dreams of a perfect world.
I couldn't fail to disagree with you any less.
I know we all "trust" google but as a web application some or most of the components are going to be on thier servers, does this mean that all my documents are transmitted to them (spellcheck, grammercheck etc) before I get to print them? If I was paranoid I would say this is a perfect place for the GOV to sit and sift for keywords of "interest". Not that I am saying Google would do it willingly.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
Well, maybe the links do NOT provide confirmation of the GoogleOffice BETA, but I really hope it is true. If they get enough people out of the MS Office Universe (more like a black hole really) MAYBE we'll get fully working interoperability. I for one do not like Word, but I need it to open the hundreds of documents people produce with it each day, from coworkers to the government (I hate it when public institutions -force- me to use MS Office products) because they use the f*ing features that OSS suites can not handle.
Competition is good, bring it ON!!!
Disclosure: I'm stupid
I'm really looking forward to a .doc-free world and seeing
Microsoft dwindle into a pitifull group of die-hards,
rewriting Windoze Vista, over and over again...
Gotta love the guys who spend their entire lives typing away in Microsoft office software declaring this move as 'no big deal'
After all, MS is always 'teh winner!' right...
One quarter of MS's profits come from a product that has become a commodity. Nope no big deal at all.
This is either gonna be over before we know it... or its gonna be the beginning of a mighty war between the heavyweights. My money is on the latter. In 20 years time we're still gonna be talking about these two giants. And we read it first on slashdot.
Better get Steve Ballmer some more chairs...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/05/chair_chuc king/
A few years ago, the world's leading computer company almost went under because it didn't understand the paradigm shift that had happened.
Because IBM didn't understand the value of the desktop to the user, and Microsoft did, IBM lost big time. Only by totally reinventing themselves as a service provider FIRST and a computer company second did IBM survive.
Today, Sun and Google understand the value of the internet to the user, and Microsoft doesn't. They never have. That's why to this day, despite numerous losses and being forced to bow to consummer demands, MS thinks "embracing and extending" open network protocol standards is a good thing. Microsoft can not survive a market place they don't understand. No business can.
You either make money, or eventually you fail, that's the reality of business. In a world where computer software production is becomming more and more commodity production, MS doesn't know how to survive. Sun and Google do. So, Bill, meet Sam Palmisano, he can teach you a bit about what you will need to do after the bankrupcy . . .
Second, Google has been getting warning signs that Microsoft wants to "cut of their (Google's) air supply". Rather than sit there and say, "Oh, that could never happen to us", they are taking the fight to Microsoft and trying to cut of their air supply. I think this is wise. I don't know if it will work in the long run, but the other approach has been shown to not work, so what do they have to lose?
And anything that spreads alternatives to Microsoft is good with me...
it could certainly represent a boon to businesses and individuals with constant network connectivity.
The company for which I work has over 30,000 employees, and I've not seen a newtork disconnect lasting more than 10 minutes in the last 5 years...that's potentially a lot of licenses (or Enterprise licenses) that will not have to be purchased.
Remember when DEC declared war on IBM ???
The future:
1. Turn on your computer
2. Watch GoogleOS(tm) boot up
3. Click your word processor button
You seem to think "operating system" means Windows. Not that I think you are right otherwise anyway.
"Launch OpenOffice from the toolbar"...?
Taken literally, this is exactly what I do now when I click the "Word Processor" icon.
Assuming that Google is not moving into the software distribution business, the implication is that they will provide some kind of web-based access to OpenOffice. But this raises more questions than it answers. What kind of access? AJAX cannot exactly be retrofitted onto existing applications. Perhaps some kind of remove access? If so, why specifically OpenOffice? Surely it would imply remote access to any random application running on Google's network somewhere. And where would my documents be stored?
The idea is not unattractive, provided it can run quickly. I have switched entirely from PC-based email to gmail, and it is true that for many projects, it's annoying to have to carry documents with me, or use something like svn, which is non-trivial to setup.
But lacking so many vital details, this story sounds like a hoax or a misreport.
My blog
I think that in order to compete against MS you should beat it on the same field.
Even the worse office suite installed into your PC is much better than any other one running only via web!
Especially when you are offline of with low bandwidth, unless there is some real major innovation in web technologies!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
Cool! Now I can delete the 1GB of files needed to operate Office XP!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Free use for MSOffice like software, sure. I am too old to see this is significant at all. Maybe the younger generation can show me what is going on.
I feel the whole existence of Google is to take down Microsoft. Esp. after the Eric Schmidt took office. I throught this only happen in old industry, industry that has little growth. Is he pathetic or just plain pessimitic about the industry?
Very very seriously, a company that aim only to take down competitors doesn't do well, look at Sun Micro, the old Apple, Oracle. Find a niche market, develop it, now that's no evil doer.
This has been a test. Had this been a real emergency, we would have fled in terror and you would not have been informed.
word:
1/2. Buy MS Office for $350
1. turn on your computer
2. watch your operating system boot
3. start microsoft office
That is going to be the biggest difference and you didn't even mention it.
Time makes more converts than reason
It seems that online word processing is not really a good way for users or even corporations to have a good handle on their documents. Seems like another added layer of security to access documents. Not only that but an annoying layer to access the documents too. I like clicking on the Word processor Icon and everything done locally. Its a good idea to fight against the mammoth Micro$oft, but if you are gonna fight against M$ office, put out a product that can allow you to edit stuff without internet access or without having to open a web browser goto google and find the doc.
BTW... OpenOffice... Is it really Sun's project or everyones... I would refer to it as just "OpenOffice."
I place my faith in Google either way though.
-- Josh
"Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" - Pete Conrad
I'll C&P what I said elsewere.
[Web Value]
"Sounds more like a chance to get Java more exposure by bundling. Anyway I do see the *Bar space being valuable to more companies in the future. Everything else is being blocked through extensions like Adblock, and tricked-out hosts files. The *Bar space can do not only advertising, but through the magic of Web services like GoogleAPI, Amazon, eBay, etc. Add a level of value that'll keep jaded web users using it."
That's were they should go.
Ignoring the fact that this seems like more speculation (already well discussed with less then 10 comments), how exactly is this a threat to Microsoft and its Office family? Microsoft's main customer for it's 500$+ office suite is not home users, but businesses. Taking away some home users (half of whom where likely running pirated copies) is like a drop in the barrel.
For a business, dropping out $500 isn't much, especially when compared to wages (this is something OSS needs to understand when they try and convince businesses they're cheaper - the initial cost is meaningless, they want figures on the support cost). On the other hand, having your critical work depend on a network connection to some internet server is quite a huge risk (especially if you can't call up that internet server and demand instant human support for any little problem). And that's before you figure in the fact that Google's whole business model is personal information data mining. Even if Google is going to give their song and dance that they won't use it for evil, most companies aren't going to let a 3rd party store their documents, let alone run an automated program over every document they have mining out key information. As has been shown in the past "Google Hacking" is often used to get to information you weren't supposed to see. Can you imagine "Google Hacking" used for corporate espionage? A company wants to know if their competitor is looking into sprockets. So they take out an "ad" on Google specifically targeted at that keyword, but with completely different ad text. They then record IPs from incoming clicks to gauge if that ad was shown to people in the target company a lot, indicating that Google had mined that phrase from many of their documents and emails (gmail). And that's before you consider the fact that Google becomes a serious hacking target (even to hostile foreign governments), since a breach would affect tens of thousands of companies. With so many eggs in one basket it might be enough to warrent a physical breakin, stealing the data of thousands of companies, which are then sold to competitors or held for blackmail.
What are the details?
What's it going to be
1) Google directs you to the staroffice website for you to download &
install it locally on your machine & google provides a place for you to
store your documents
OR
2) Google & Sun rebuild StarOffice as a Webservice & then allow you
to edit your document through a webapp & also proves a place for
you to store your documents
Model 1 -> In my opinion, doesn't provide anything new. You
can do it now. Still doesn't solve the problem of people being
locked to Microsoft's format.
Model 2 -> May be good - may solve the problem of people being bound to
the Microsoft document format (i.e. the format isn't important if you have
a service, which is always accessible to everyone to open/edit/print it,
but there is one problem.
50% of the time, documents are edited offline. It's going to be some
years, before people are online all the time. Even when that happens,
what happens if your service goes down & you need to edit the document
coz you have a presentation in 15 minutes.
Plus can a webbased service really provide all the functionality & speed of
a native application?
Isn't it ironic?
Google's achievments so far:
- a great because simple to use search engine
- a mediocre desktop search
- an okay webmail app
- daily hype-spam about things that will come or will not come but that usually require some man-years to develop and are not likely to be released in the next time to come but that keep journalists and a whole scene of bloggers happy and busy speculating
This is yet another milestone in Google's quest to achieve access to all of our personal information.
I bet they'll be crawling all the documents you type, all the data you input, cross refer that with all your mail from your GMail account/Online searches/Google-Maps activity/Google Talk conversations/ISP traffic where Google-Wifi is available, etc.
It seems we're all waiting for it to become "too late" before we realize what's been going on.
Google can do far greater damage then Microsoft ever could.
Soon enough, Google would turn out to be our worst privacy intrusion nightmare.
Wake up people!
Sigs are for the weak.
Microsoft backed off the story once they received the wide-ranging negative feedback online. Their software, and they even admit this still, allows the creation of a single use DVD movie -- just not one in standards' compliant MPEG-2 format. But you knew that already: it wouldn't be single use if it were actually MPEG-2 compliant. So, Microsoft denies a story that originated with them using tautologies, even though their software lets you make single-use DVDs.
Can someone explain to me how you access a thick client application from a browser toolbar?
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
I certainly hope so! I have enjoyed using OO.o and hope to see continued development on that project. I would like to see the project focus more on the speed of execution and loading. It's a bit slow even if it is worth the wait. Admittedly MS Office "cheats" by preloading components into the operating system, but then so should OO.o. Under Windows, I understand that OO.o already does some preloading, but I'm a Linux user primarily and only use Win+OO.o when I have to move data from Linux to Windows.
Or perhaps the problem I am describing has already been managed and I just haven't caught on -- this wouldn't be the first time. So if anyone could offer answers, I'm listening. I use FC4 and keep it as "stock" as possible by using only updates from the main channels. (I have broken my own rules, recently by subscribing myself to the nr-production channels to gain access to Gnome 2.12 as I have found it to be VASTLY faster and VASTLY more stable than 2.10 or whatever FC4 normally uses.)
Anyway... I digress... I hope Google will participate, then, in the development of OO.o and perhaps even in the Linux Desktop movement!
Google can offer free office and other software in some sort of ASP model. But how do they make money? By infrastructure!
It's about time. I wanna see those Google tanks take on the Microsoft cyborgs with all the cluster bombing and the killing and Redmond getting nuked and I wouldn't wanna fuck around with Steve Ballmer, I can just imagine him in a torn shirt and a bandana armed with a minigun and stabbing the wounded with his bayonet and Bill Gates wired into some massive battle computer and Steve Jobs just biding his time waiting for them to destroy each other so he can piss on the ashes.......... Man, this is some good coffee!!!
The day I may use Linux as freely as I am forced to use Windows to play my games, do my work, etc... is coming closer. If Google can make a concerted push to use OpenOffice then the document exchange I need done on a regular basis will be easy between Linux and Windows users.
:)
Now if only Linux was as EASY to use as Windows, and we are there. I'm thinking something Mac OSX-esque for Linux -- Google has the means to deliver it. They don't need to release their own distro of Linux, but they can release a KDE/GNOME competitor that makes using Linux a BREEZE.
I'm just waiting for the day
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
Yes, MS has some strong arming advantages in their tactics to protect themselves from Google, but they've already been limited by the government, people are becoming frustrated with MSFT's stock performance over the past five years, and CNBC has been pointing out threats like Linux and the world is taking it seriously.
So, in addition to software quality, Google's war will be helped greatly by their brand, imo.
Many have complained about the advantages stemming from the pre-installed nature of MicroSoft's wares. With this, anyone wanting to use an alternative to Office has one "pre-installed" as well if they have solid net access.
This could be very big - it is the only way I can see to get wider use of this product around MS's strong-arming of vendors.
Using plain ol' text since 1968
Details still seem to be sorely lacking. I join the ranks of posters asking, "huh? How confirmed are these confirmations?" and such. So there's gonna be a link to OpenOffice (or is it StarOffice?) on the Google toolbar? Rock on. If this is going to open up a supposedly locally installed app, I don't see how great that is. OTOH, if Google is going to do a web based version of {Open,Star}Office, then that's something altogether different, and might be worth MS sitting up and taking notice of.
I'd love to see MS have some real competition for word processing dominance, but at this time, I think it's still too soon to tell if this announcement will amount to anything substantial.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
Ah, I see now - this is how Google is going to add to online books collection. Imagine, now authors' works can be indexed, searched and read even before they're finished! (Since it's hard to determine demeanor from a post - I meant this to be funny).
Dark Reflection
It finally starts. The general public might finally understand that there is an alterative to MS.
Two years ago I introduced firefox to a friend who I thought was tech savvy but I was amazed by her reaction, "You're telling me we have a choice of what browser we want to use?" Needless to say I was floored. Non geeks know who Sun is but everybody including Joe "I don't need no dang computer" Sixpack knows who Google is.
Let's forget for a moment that this is Sun's Star Office and not Open Office, and it's Google and web-based.
This maybe the moment when the general public finally realizes that they have a choice what software to run. This can only be good for OSS if marketed/reported in the right way.
Let's not get over zealous bashing M$ and say screaming about Linux, OpenOffice, Gimp & NVU...baby steps...our time will come.
And remember...do no evil!
Google isn't declaring "war" on Microsoft. That isn't their way. I know several people who work at Google, and they just don't talk about "killing" companies the way Microsoft employees do. It truly is a different work culture there. If someone does use "the K word" at an all-hands meeting or something, the bosses are quick to say that they don't want the employees to think about things that way.
Google can be a resoundingly successful company even if Microsoft is alive and well, and they're fine with that. The only thing Google needs from Microsoft is for them not to put up artificial barriers to accessing Google's services, such as modifying IE in ways that hamper Google. So I'm sure Google would love to see everyone using a non-MS browser such as Firefox.
I really think Google's strategy is (or should be) to lift the key services and applications from the OS up into well-made web services. Word processing is a huge one for most of us. I'm still anxiously hoping that a calendar and scheduler (Outlook-type program) comes along soon to integrate with Gmail. Once Google fills those needs, assuming they do it well, I'll really enjoy having consistent services that I can use from anywhere, on any platform.
Think fast, create a network on the fly.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Are you implying you can't run Microsoft Office on Linux?
OpenOffice, as least the spreadsheet, I wouldn't consider it a serious contender of Excel, I have a file that has about 20 cols and 3-4k row per columns (all formulaes), 10 sheet. Excel manage it well, while OpenCalc claw like slow poke.
StartOffice, I actually used it (I dunno, long long time ago) before Sun took control and spread its Java wraith on it. I paid the full price for it, and happy with it, not exactly very polished, but very usable.
OpenOffice is really for very very casual user, like me, who rarely use Word but paid for it because the package price is more attractive. But then, if you use more than 2 package in MSOffice, buying the whole package is more economical. Besides, I think I like iWork better than OpenOffice.
GMail.
Sounds like a great idea. Wait that sounds like an awful idea.
I just tried opening Microsoft Excel and I aged about 2 seconds as I waited for it to load, I think you are either misinformed or making crap up.
-Sun will promote Google Toolbar
-Google will promote Java runtime and stuff
Nowhere does it say that there will be a in-browser version on OpenOffice. It's speculation. If you disagree, link me a press release and quote it.
-everphilski-
Competition means improvement, perhaps now we can get something other than UI changes and Genuine Disadvantage programs from MS, and I am willing to bet Google will do it better and I can skip MS entirely. We need someone that can go toe to toe with MS, because regardless of who is hear in 10 years, our software will be better.
The point of declaring a war is that you are the first one to do it. Microsoft has already made it abundantly clear that they want Google's head on a platter. Headline should read 'Google joins in war Microsoft started'.
And why is this a big deal? Well sure people could use openoffice as an alternative to Microsoft Office, but people not familiar with opensource software often aren't comfortable with installing it on their harddrive. They think openoffice == shareware. So go and make it availaable on the internet through a google toolbar, you add a whole new level of credibility to the product that "average Joes" will be comfortable with. And we all know the "average Joe" market is the market to win these days. Microsoft has not had any strong competition for their office suite in a decade, so this should prove interesting on the software front.
It's very interesting when a company does something that nobody ever thought of before and it turns out to be a big win. "How about a camera that can do its own processing inside the camera, without requiring a photofinisher?" "How about a SMALL computer, one that doesn't have floating-point arithmetic and can run off an ordinary AC outlet and costs under $100,000?" "How about a spreadsheet that automatically recalculates the totals when you change the numbers in it?"
It's boring when a company gets delusions of grandeur and goes head-to-head against an existing company.
Wang Laboratories which, after decades of brilliant innovation in phototypesetting and desktop calculators and word processing, decided that now it was time to start gunning for IBM. (Hey, they even had a TV ad with a helicopter gunship literally doing exactly that).
Can you say "hubris?"
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Apparently Google is in possession of documents claiming Microsoft is in possession of Weapons of Mass Distribution.
In related news, it has been reported that Clippy was an early casualty - he took a direct hit from a sniper in the semi-colon. At the end, he simply wiggled his eyes, straightened, and flew away.
Some settling may occur during posting.
1. Announce alliance with Sun.
2. ?
3. Profit!
Google will pay Sun for the privalige of having the Google bar as an optional download with Sun's JVMs. And Google will buy more Sun servers, though details of that are apparantly coming later. Google will also help spread the word on JVMs and OpenOffice.org. Sun will be buying AdWords. There certainly seems to be more coming, but how much and how significant is impossible to say currently.
Here's a good write-up of the event in Stephen O'Grady's RedMonk blog.
Jonathan Schwartz also has some comments in his latest blog entry
New UI coming soon?
You can buy computers with an office suite already installed for cheap. The office suite is Corel Office. If you apply the 80-20 rule, most people should like it.
Corel was foolish enough to declare war on MS a few years ago. They bought WordPerfect from Novell. They even had their own Linux distro. The result was very bad for Corel. I wish these guys better luck.
eom etc
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Taking on MS killed Word Perfect.
Taking on MS on an all fronts war (Netware/PerfectOffice/Groupwise) almost killed Novel.
Taking on MS on an all fronts war (OS/2, SmartSuite, Notes) caused such massive losses for IBM that lesser companies would have imploded under the strain.
Attempting to cut off Microsoft's air supply is an arduous and perilous task. It may very well be that such an attempt will be profitable, but history suggests that all past attempts have met a rather bitter end. To be fair, Google does has quite a bit going for it that Word Perfect, Novel and IBM didn't back in the nineties. So, perhaps things will turn out different.
i doubt oppen office web will convert me from using winword...
unless it's like office with a few upgrades and made by google, im not gona be using it because it's a billion times easier to do win+r winword and have word open rather than opening up ff and then going to there site, then loging in then opening my document...
http://DiabloHeat.com | http://Kyle.TheOCSucks.com | http://TheOCSucks.com
From a button's tool bar!
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
The partnership could mark a shift away from the traditional method of distributing software through the Microsoft Windows system and bring greater visibility to such Java-based programs as OpenOffice.org.
You'll find the above paragraph is CNN's speculation on the press release, not part of the press release itself.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
That doesn't mean Google will launch an online/web-enabled write/spreadsheet application. That could be something as miniscule as linking to OpenOffice.org from the GoogleToolbar to "download" the application. Google has not confirmed the development of a web-enabled word processor. Everyone has simply drawn that conclusion based upon speculation.
I want something official or nothing at all.
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
Given Jonathon Schwartz's repeated comments about Sun Ray Thin Clients being "usable anywhere you can get Google", is it possible that the toolbar could basically contain a modified X Server? Your browser will effectively become a thin client that connects to a Google server running a copy of Star Office specifically for you. Modern video compression techniques would allow this to work over a relatively slow connection.
This would require very little adaptation of Star Office from its current code base, so would be quick to market. It would get round the problem of Ajax being unsuitable for the job, yet would avoid users having to download the entire office suite onto their local PCs.
There was a time when contact management (or, in a more sophisticated form, CRM - customer relationship management) was a desktop app like Act or similar products. Enter SalesForce.com. You could say the same thing about what used to be the province of QuickBooks Pro, or lighter-weight implementations of accounting apps like Solomon or Great Plains, and look instead at NetLedger.com. These are complete migrations from desktop business apps to subscription-based web apps. Likewise with newer versions of tax prep software, etc. This is not new.
That being said, I don't want to have to be internet-connected in order to work on a word processor document.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Yet again, Forbes magazine shows that it's losing its grip. First they write an article about how my religious institution is corrupt because we have tons of contributions (which we use to maintenance over 1500 centers worldwide), and now they can't tell the value and importance of news.
With an online spreadsheet and word processor, I won't have to jack around with my flash drive all the time between school, work and home. I can create a document online and save it there; forward it to whomever I need to; and access it whenever without the need for my flash drive intermediary. Big news for me and the other kajillion students out there. I used to shuttle stuff around via email and even a web site I had before. This eliminates machinations like that too.
Also, the city of Houston and state of Indiana both set up a similar system called SimDesk a few years ago.
Seriously, I think this archatecture is the way of the future - being able to use a software suite that's stored on a central server and accessed through a web browser. I've already seen it with PeopleSoft V8+, but you need to host it on site (I'm sure there's hosted solutions, but most customers host it themselves). Yahoo! mail, MSN Hotmail et al. are also hosted, but it's the first time I've seen the promise of a hosted office suite. I'm expecting to see more and more software hosted on a central site that users can go and access using the browser. Of course, there will be the usual security concerns, and I have a thing of owning the software on my hard drive (maybe it's because I've been conditioned to loading software on my PC), but I do think we'll see more of this type of "hosted software" in the future.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
Saying that Java is good because it works on all OS's is like saying anal is good because it works on all genders... [bash quote] OO.o is "bad" purely cause of its java-ness association-ness.
Suddenly, you have no need for local data storage and you lose the risk of losing data on faulty workstations. Data is encrypted. Data storage devinely complies with GLBA, SOX, Patriot Act, God, etc.
You have flexibility to access your 'documents' from any computer on the Internet.
*gService = Random name of google service that handles this...
reading everyone's comments, it seems the basic assumption is that all of your documents/spreadsheets will be stored on google's servers.. but thats not necessarily the case.
nothing says that you cant load/save your work locally from/on your hd or fd or usb or whatever other media you may happen to want to use. i mean, they very well could incorporate that without too much difficulty, if its not already.
if not, it would a very big 'oops' on their part.
just thought i'd point that out, anyway...
~ jc
http://www.digifuzz.net
File -> new document -> templates -> report -> I'm feeling Lucky!
This is great news, but if you have to use IE 6 or above on a Windows computer, I don't see a lot of businesses jumping off of MS's Office ship right away. If it works in Firefox, on any platform, that will drill a hole, and set the dinamite for IT admins to start pushing FF more in the corporate invironment. Maybe Linux might follow soon after.
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My guess is that Gmail was the key to this. Google wants to become your storage for all your documents as well as help you author them
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
I know how you feel; I'd never trust somebody else with my documents (I'm even uneasy about my email being stored on Google's servers (though most of it is encrypted)). For the vast majority of users, though, this is more secure than their own computer.
I see how it's not very compatible with an office environment, but if Google follows the same model as they did with their search technology, they'll probably offer an appliance that will sit behind the company's firewall and keep all of the documents there. Then you have the advantage of locally stored documents and the advantage of not paying the licensing fees for a boatload of MS Office installs.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
when Google was called Netscape.
Well, at least when it is online, the existance of the .org at the end of OpenOffice will be justified.
It will only matters if they can make an open, standard doc format common for all users. They're just like any other office app competitor to Microsoft, even if their app is better and easier to "install". The doc format lockin is the MS ace in the hole.
.doc and .xls form. I know that they're the endpoints of any web link graph, when the user agent can't parse their MS formatted links to other docs. But so is .pdf, and we get a lot more of those results. While Acrobat is designed for Web use more than is Word (native format), there's simply so much more Word and Excel activity that I'd expect more Office doc results than the tiny amount I do see. So I suspect that Google isn't any better at parsing Office formats than is anyone else. Which bodes poorly for any Google advantage in migrating the world's Office format users to an open one (or to any one). They might have an advantage in money and smarts, but I don't see signs that they've already got experience in pulling off this epochal feat. Maybe that's why they've partnered with Sun on Ajaxing OpenOffice, but Sun hasn't proven able to slay that dragon, either.
I'm always surprised when I Google that I don't get a lot more results in
I wish them luck, but I don't have any serious expectations. It looks like they've identified the critical "world changing" market need, but no signs other than announcing a policy to exploit it that they can pull it off. That road is already littered with dried bones.
--
make install -not war
Where do I go to sign up?
Do we get guns? How long is basic?
Thats because Forbes is nothing but a bunch of paid Microsoft lackeys who haven't had an original article with any insight since the winter of 82'
Ever heard of a UPS? Or a battery powered Laptop?
No such thing as a UPS for the entire Internet.
But seriously I really doubt that this GOOffice product (or what ever they're gonna call it) will require an internet connection. I think that google will simply be offering Goofice as a download along with the toolbar. Has anybody heard anything to suggest that it will be something that only works over the web?
Inquirer's article is so grossly irresponsible, and the summary so inaccurate, that I think this should just be removed
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Oh wait, I see he bagged Microsoft, yeah great one Einstein you da man.
If this is true, the word and excel standards will no longer rule the business world. This is a nice way for users to try and love openoffice and open document standards. MS Office file formats are one of the big reasons business users don't make the switch from MS to OSS, so just imagine if everybody starts using openoffice...
A Java based Open Office is the next step in understanding what its user's are interested in. Neoffice/J is an excellent start. It replaced all of OpenOffice graphics with Java. But I believe the bulk of the code is still C. There are also old rumors on the net that Sun is/was working on an all Java version of OpenOffice. With a little Google polish, it could gather information about what you do, and thus what you are likely to need.
If you are not familiar with Mac OSX, look at Widgets for a glimpse of the future. Small apps that connect to the web, using web technology, but not necessarily in a browser... But why only small apps? If they can make Javascript cool, what could they do with Java?
Why? OOo from a toolbar means a bloated install for the end user and does not match the spirit of other web-based ajax offerings. Ooo is 1990's technology and paradigm. I would have expected Google to be more forward thinking and develop something similar to writely, a true web-based (thin and light) collaborative writing tool.
Search for Kiko, Num Sum and Writely to get an idea of a web-based office.
Thinkfree office has exactly the same service (a MS compatible office program available online, with document saving on their server for free)..
http://www.thinkfree.org/
But I imagine Google/Sun will get more publicity.
Seeing the Google people aren't exactly fools, am I being too cynical or is it possible that they are making all these beta product launches and ambiguous policy announcements to cause MS's stocks to dip so they can buy them cheap themselves :-P
Microsoft didn't win by being the best, they "won" by being the cheapest that works.
Word wasn't "better" than WordPerfect (if you are running a transcription service or something similar, people have the FASTEST results with WP 5.1 than ANY modern system), and Excel wasn't "better" than Lotus 1-2-3. However, they were less than half the price and you could get the bundle for less than either program individually.
Sure, business travelers will have no interest in virtual open office... at least for the forseeable future, but home users MIGHT. My wife uses web mail (Gmail), because she can check it at the office AND at home. If she works on a personal document, she emails it to herself. A virtual (GOffice) would work for her.
Sure, those of us that work on laptops on flights would have no interest, but that doesn't matter.
If Google grabs the bottom 50% of the market, than Microsoft is in trouble... they can't sell companies on paying $100/machine to OEM office if the competition eats their lunch because home users use Goffice and business users get site licenses.
Remember why software often is winner-take-all. The costs are 99% R&D, and 1% Variable, therefore, the contribution margin on each sale is close to 99% of price. If Microsoft loses 10% of Office, that could reduce their "profits" by 20%, 30%, or more... If they need 30% of the market to cover their R&D costs, and they hold 70%, than a 10% loss in marketshare loses 25% of their profits...
Google just needs to eat them from the bottom, and Microsoft is in trouble.
Microsoft's business REQUIRES being "good enough" for 70%-90% of the markets that they play in. The smaller market remaining forces their competition higher and higher up the chain.
Apple's OS R&D isn't going to be THAT MUCH smaller than Microsoft's, which forces Apple's prices to be higher (compare Apple's margins on hardware to Microsoft's OEM deals... for fairness, backout the gross margin that other manufacturers make, probably 10%, and you see Apple's OS "premium" which is 8x-10x Microsoft's OEM price)...
MS SQL Server forced Oracle and DB2 out of the low end of the market, which keeps them in the premium spot despite better tech, because MS SQL is "good enough" and therefore a price drop doesn't grab marketshare for the better players.
This is why Apache, MySQL, PostgreSQL and other Open Source solutions scare Microsoft... Microsoft can't sell a lot of web servers (compared to their marketshare in desktops or Office Suites), because LAMP is "good enough," which has REALLY hurt them... in that they thought they could leverage the Win95 monopoly into a server monopoly, which they never obtained.
Alex
http://online.thinkfree.com.nyud.net:8090/ (Coralized)
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:9hxx796XGNMJ: online.thinkfree.com/+&hl=en (Google's cache)
http://online.thinkfree.com/ (Spare them please!)
I read this in one of Europe's least recommendable newspapers yesterday at lunch: the Italian edition of the International Herald Tribune, a poor subclass of an already bad newspaper: the New York Times. I didnot see anything coming from either Sun or Google, nor any comments from Microsoft.
This way of presenting unconfirmed information - at its best a minor news item, at worst a hoax - like big business news seems quite typical for the internet age and may be resumed by the paradigm "It's reliable, as it's on more than one spot on the internet !" Observed the same attitude with my 14-year old stepdaughter: when she pulls something from the internet for school work, she ****never*** ( like in ever ) checks it.
Serious journalism seemds dead, or dying.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
My thoughts as I read the tag:
Google office tools! Wow! Wait... Sun office tools... siiiiigh of deflation.
When Microsoft signed the deal with Sun, they never realized that Google might want to use that against them. They can now use Sun software as a service via Google, and infringe on any of Microsoft's Office patents, without the threat of a lawsuit. OpenOffice does not have this ability. Microsoft WOULD sue Openoffice.org if it became very popular. Under the agreement, there is no limit to the way Sun could distribute the application/service.
Go Google!
Completely obvious, but it seems to me that the target market for office software would be the corporate world. The problem I see with Google's idea is that it runs on the web, no? I can tell you right now that the publicly traded company I work for would never switch to Google's online office software because of the security risk associated with us putting our closely held financials online with the potential of them getting stolen. Even if the software had never been broken, or if it ran on Java with no connection to the net once it were running, the folks that make the decisions around here would still perceive it to be a huge security risk and not give it the light of day. Just my $0.02.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
Sun and Google also said they would jointly promote Sun's Java Desktop operating system and its Open Office productivity software system, a free, open-source productivity software suite. The partnership could mark a shift away from the traditional method of distributing software through the Microsoft Windows system and bring greater visibility to such Java-based programs as OpenOffice.org.
They will promote a Java desktop program. Whoopee! More marketing, that's impressive.
It could mark a shift away from Microsoft. Whoopee! It COULD be something.
It does say Java-based programs, implying something running in the browser, but I wonder how many people will be happy waiting for some huge word processor applet to download to work on a document .
There sure isn't much substance there.
Infuriate left and right
to spy on Microsoft? lol
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
probably more like:
Invent and write story in blog that the company everybody loves is going to destroy the company everybody loves to hate. People believe it because they want to.
Buy stock in the company everybody loves to hate at a discount.
Wait 3 days for everybody to realize its just lies.
Sell stock for big profit.
News Flash, SEC starts to investigate bloggers.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
This time it was Ballmer's table that was....:-)
So in the future, will google.com redirect to msn search, or use it silently on the back end?
Maybe not
Innocence? Google just pulled a world-class tax evasion scam. Where's their innocence?
.com thing showed us, people's allegiance is related to how much it would cost them to switch away. Since gmail is a free service and competes against other free services, it is difficult for them to monetize it.
.com days when people conflate stock performance (as in your last paragraph) with what a company does with it's customers. We're back to marketing companies and stock prices again. What could possible go wrong there?
When people blab about branding and how Google is a verb, I have to ask, what about TiVo? "Mom! I told you to TiVo Crank Yankers!" TiVo is a verb, and they're boned. Is your Rolodex really a Rolodex?
I don't understand exactly how much it matters that people are enjoying free toys like gmail. As the
Yes, they can show ads, it's really one thing Google is best at (other than just throwing away money). But then they have to worry about the allegiance of advertisers. I don't see how pay-per-click allegiance offers any allegiance. If MS can provide any clicks at all, then advertisers will sign up with MS as well as Google. This makes it difficult to kill MS.
You know, really, we must be back in the
Finally, to whack this dead horse some more, I think you're mistaken about the perception of stability of Windows by the average person. It's very stable, and I think the average user doesn't have much problem with that nowadays (death to Windows Me!). I do think there's a good chance the average user perceives Windows as virus/worm ridden though. Because, well, it is. But over 10 years, MS fixed the reliability of Windows, there's a decent chance they could improve the virus/worm resistance of it until the only significant subsceptibility left is the nut behind the keyboard.
My belief is that the #1 thing that has led to Google's ability to impact MS is really MS's poor execution lately. If Google were taking on the MS that had recently released Windows 2000 and Windows 98SE they'd be in a tough spot.
I also have to say I, for one, have no interest in running a word processor or spreadsheet in a browser, especially in Java. Oh, and BTW, Google site-licenses MS Office for their own internal use.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I like how the OP describes the two linked articles (Forbes and Infoworld) as if they're commenting on the importance of a web-based office suite offered by Google. The Forbes article simply discusses how the story has been overblown in the absence of any technical details and the Infoworld article "counters" Forbes by saying that OpenOffice is worth a second look and that while converting macros could be a problem they have tools to help with that.
Some people just get too excited about submitting an article to Slashdot. They really need to slow down and read what they're posting.
I am the inventor of the hilarious refrigerator alarm.
That's what I see happening here. The problem is that it's just plain awkward to have to open a browser window do type a term paper. I don't know. I just think most people will sum it all up by saying, "Well it's definately annoying sometimes but I guess it's better than paying $500 for MS Office." But they won't have much good to say other than that. MS Office is a premium product. People who switch for whatever reason will miss many things about MS Office.
It's not going to be an overnight thing. But hopefully with many many more users OO will get much better providing a solution to 99% of what a normal home user needs an office product for.
The risk is that it won't be a smash hit. People will try it out and will not see much benefit over the MS Office that they already use for free at college/work or have already have paid for at home.
I hope it works but I'm doubtful.
How is Google going to pay for this? How much advertising is going to on every page? Won't customers ignore (or block) most ads once we start to intuitively realize where they are on the page?
Isn't the hopelessness of endless ads why dotcoms failed? Consumers are already at a negative savings rate; we can't spend any more than we already do.
or Nike!
Maybe the fact that OOo has Sun stamped everywhere should be a clue that they released it?
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
http://eyeos.masquedominios.com/ user:demo pass:demo click on the icon with the waves on it, you got it. Here is the screenshot of it: http://2e2c.free.fr/ajaxbrowser.png I hope that puts an end to the "and how about a web based browser?" slashdot joke.
download and burn linux with one click on windows
OpenOffice(TM) is a trademark of some other company, not Sun. Therefore OpenOffice.org is the name of the LGPL'd part of StarOffice. It's in the FAQ if anybody actually bothered to read it.
OpenOffice.org name FAQ
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Here's someone who kept the old Corel Java Office. I remember being cautiously exited about this, but it turned out the computers of that time and the bandwith generaly available were a killer for this app (pun intended)...
Cheers...
$HOME is where the
-- silver_p
The text formatting capabilities of Gmail just plain suck IMO. Admittedly, they are a great achievement having been implemented in a web browser but it's a far cry from being able to replace what Word can do.
Google toolbar office a hoax.
Stay tuned.
The blog Can Google take further on Microsoft..? have some thoughts relavent to it.. What Google can do at Office suit....? I come across a good open source office suit by name openoffice (www.openoffice.org), which works similar in windows machines and Unix/Linux machines. This can be a right choice to Google to either fund this project and take base from it, and enhance and give to people.
Haven't you evern noticed if you search for some technical information you get web pages and PDFs? The buisness world runs on MS Office so why aren't there more DOC, XLS, and Power Point showing up in Google searches? It isn't that Google can chew threw a .doc file found on a web page. The problem seems to be that the meta-information to build up relavence and change seems to be constantly moving or is hidden in MS Office files. It has gotten bad enough that you are better off exporting Office data to something else (Html, PDF) to make it appear on search enginges.
From MS's side, if MS were smart(er) they should leverage this advantage. Google can't seem to understand Office format documents (or at least they are no better than any other 3rd Party ISV) so why not turn this weakness into a strength?
From Google's side, there is a bunch of closed documents they will never fully understand. Their options seem to be keep hacking on the format from the outisde (which they are doing now with limited success), ignore them (not something no one would recommend), or push formats they can understand.
What the parent is wringing their hands over is the idea that any open document can be disected by "the bad people". This is the same bogus idea in security. Data "security through obscurity" is erronious: making the data format a "black box" doesn't make a document any more "secure" than an open one. If you want a security mechanism, you use a security mechanism instead of praying "the bad guys" are unable to undrestand the data.
In the end, "the bad people" will hack the format anyway and get the information they need out of any ill gotten files. while users are left wondering why they can't use 3rd party tools (or build their own!!) to help them manage their data. I want Google to find more documents. I want Google to understand documents I create without having to go through another process to transform the data. I don't see how either of these are a bad thing because "the bad guys" are going to do it anyway with Google's help.
Opening Open Office from the tool bar eh?
I noticed Gmail just started supporting timed auto-saves and you can cut and past formatted text and it turns them into some type of pseudo object...in javascript..yea
So yet, it's totally insane what you can do with Javascript and when I heard speculation about Google and an Office Suite, I suspected they would write their own similar to gmail. However it doesn't like that's the case (although it is hard to discern from the article).
OpenOffice is a huge install, something that will be quite obvious if it starts downloading with the toolbar. Are they going to make a web interface to OpenOffice, or is this simply the program installed on Windows with the Google brand and easy toolbar access...maybe some "Save to Google Account..." type features thrown in.
Doesn't Sun own Star Office, not Open Office?
how exactly is this a threat to Microsoft and its Office family?
Look at it this way: There are two main users of MS Office, home users and business users.
Mass. is leading the way in switching away from MS Office formats, and all signs are that many other governements (and subsequenly many businesses) are intending to make the same switch. That means MS is very worried about keeping business users.
Now Google and Sun team up and start working on pushing alternative office suites to home users. With Google's high visibility and good reputation, a "Google Office" could become the Next Big Thing very easily if it's done right.
That's why MS is threatened by this. The OpenDocument standard coming into use at the same time as a free, OD-supporting "Google Office" makes its debut aims a hefty, possibly even fatal, double-blow against MS's biggest cash cow.
So.. it has come to this
Word wasn't "better" than WordPerfect (if you are running a transcription service or something similar, people have the FASTEST results with WP 5.1 than ANY modern system), and Excel wasn't "better" than Lotus 1-2-3. However, they were less than half the price and you could get the bundle for less than either program individually.
Word (DOS) may not have as good as WP51 (not even close), but Word for Windows 1.1 certainly was better that WordPerfect for Windows. WP4Win was utter crap - bad looking and unreliable: a bad rewrite of a great DOS app.
Windows was hot; everyone needed Windows apps. Windows took away WP's biggest advantage: good printer drivers. On top of that, the Windows products usually offered WYSIWYG, which necessary or not, was also hot, hot, hot in the mid 80's.
1-2-3 for Windows was OK, but Excel was better. With it's powerful macro language and OLE integration between Word and Excel, it was a better pick assuming you had chosen Word for Windows.
Windows killed WP and 1-2-3 by leveling the field with printer drivers and WYSIWYG, forcing Lotus and WP to rewrite - and fall on their face.
Don't assume Microsoft always wins despite quality - they have often delivered (even if acquired) the most innovative (PowerPoint, Visio, Visual Basic, COM, IE4 DOM) or best of class (Word4Win vs WP, Excel vs 123, IE5 vs Netscape 4, Visual Studio 6.0 vs Borland C++, Exchange vs Groupwise/Notes)
swap Linux for Solaris, doesn't have ANYTHING to do with whether Google would or not. Check your ego fo' you wreck yourself
Rich content WEB services such as GOOGLE EARTH, Have never been
possible due to lack of bandwith.
If I wanted to runn a web based app like those darn java applets
that couldn't compete with apps running local.
Now, With Broadband in place(4 Mbps or more), You can access a Full fledged app
from the web and and rival in performance with your locally install MS Crap.
Microsoft bussiness model:
Control the distribution channel (CD's/preinstalled)
Pay for programs, not conent.
Google bussiness model:
Control the distribution channel (WEB-HOSTS-SERVICES/WI-FI)
Pay for conent, not programs.
The clock is ticking
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
IBM's not doing so bad, and Microsoft will almost certaily thrive even if the supposed shift happens. http://www.ibm.com/investor/
Running Office on an emulator would add some more steps. You FAIL IT.
Who considers the inquirer a trusty news source?
I am sure what happens is more like this:
Google Minion #1: "Boy, this new partnership will really kill Microsoft."
Google Leader #2: "Now, now! Let's not use the "K" word!"
Google Leader #1: "No. We will do far worse than kill Microsoft. We will hurt them. And we wish to go on hurting them. We shall leave them as they have left others, as they would leave us - marooned for all eternity in the center of a crashed system, buried alive. Buried alive"
www.eFax.com are spammers
I don't buy it. The situation is more complex than that. The web is changing the way software is designed and that's good thing. Thing will not be the same. But it's not an either/or world. There is such a thing as nuance.
My take.
The most interesting scenarios are not entirely Web-based. I think the world is not going to go entirely one way (Web-based) or the other (all PC/device-based). The most interesting scenarios take advantage of the easy deployment and easy updating of Web-based applications and the power of PC-based applications. Note: didn't say Windows but Windows will be a major player for many many years to come IMHO.
There are lots of reasons for this. First, let's talk applications. While web email systems like Hotmail of Gmail are nice, they're clunky compared to a full email client like Outlook. I have played around with some of the Web (Ajax) based "productivity" applications (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_usin g_Ajax/) for links to some examples and they're nice but nothing compared to Office or a good PC-based personal information manager. Try them for yourself to see.
Then there's hardware. PC and mobile device hard ware is getting incredibly cheap. I just bought a duel core 3.3 mhz systemn with 2 gigs of ram and 1 tb of disck space for less than $3,000. There are literally billions of PC's out in the world and will be billions of smart phones out there within a few years. Just this week MIT talked about the $100 PC coming. Why would we want to use all of that processing power for nothing more than driving dumb-terminals with browsers? It just doesn't make sense. Software developers should build applications that use that processing power to do cool things that you can't with purely Web-based applications.
Then there's privacy and security. You can whine all you want about problems with security of Windows or PC's in general but I would guess that most people are still more comfortable having their personal information on their own PC rather than up in the cloud. Do you really want your Quicken files sitting on a server somewhere? I'm sure people will get more comfortable with this over time but I don't think these concerns will ever go away entirely.
Then there's connectivity. Sure, someday connectivity may be 100% pervasive but I don't see that happening any time soon. I live in a very "wired" city and there are still many many places where I can't get WiFi access or even decent wireless phone service. Do I really want to rely completely on Web-based applications for my computing? Not this decade.
The good news is that good software developers will find ways to give users the best of both worlds. Although it will take time to come to fruition, I think amazing applications will come along that have locally running code, combined with code running on servers that deliver experiences we can barely imagine. I saw a demo at Microsoft's PDC last month of an application developed for 3M. The application ran in a browser (IE now but relatively trivial to make it work in other modern browsers) that used Windows Vista's new presentation technology running on the PC and connected out to Web services to deliver an absoltely amazing experience. Because the application used local resources the graphics were incredible - 3D zooming, great navigation, rich graphics etc. But the application also connected up to Web-based resources using Web services to bring data into the application. The application runs
Upgrade in process.....
:p
hahaha... That's one way to handle a slashdotting
"Never let outsiders know what the family thinks" - Godfather
"Keep your friends close, enemies closer" - Godfather
GOOG's strategy - If your enemy is strong, distract him.
Google Talk launched, MS started buying companies in that domain.
I think someone just S*** himself........ but seriously, Balmer is going to kill Google by: launching a search engine...oops done that- partial screwup will fix in Vista launching an email service....oops done that- partial screwup will fix in Vista launching advertising...oops done that- will be a partial screwup, etc WHAT ELSE CAN HE DO?????? I know lets make google incompatible with Vista....... See you in 2 years time
The Google toolbar uses a local webserver on the desktop, i.e. a web app that doesnt have to use an internet connection. The 'goodness' is in the fact that a tiny webserver can intermingle it's content with the online Google page (i.e. your desktop searches are included in your web searches).
It seems sensible to me that any office app they do (especially JRE based, i.e. a *Office derivative) would work both off and online, but mixing them up when you have a connection.
So, enough with the 'I don't want a browser based office app that needs a web connection...', cause if it is going to suck then connectivity might not be the reason.
Microsoft has so many liquid assetts that if they put them all into US treasury bonds and stopped charging for all of their software and services, they would still be in business at their present burn rate well after you and I pass away.
Web software is good but in house software. .he's bound to get lawsuit from everyone or people will change OS all together, it's going to be cheaper to make peopel learn something that looks like MS than paying them for everything.
If microsoft thinks that it can make their office and O.S strickly work on-line and make the end-user pay per use
Bill Gates is one crazy ass
Burma Shave.
Go find one of the adoption graphs on the web (I won't do it for you).
Excel "overtook" 1-2-3 and Word overtook Wordperfect in 1993 or 1994... which was BEFORE Windows 95 when Windows became the "hot thing."
But more than that, the EXISTENCE of these products cramped the markets for the DOS dominating players, which decimated profit margins, which altered the market realities for these companies.
Make less money, and you have less to invest in the next round for two reasons, #1 you have less cash on hand to fund R&D, and #2, you now need to decrease your expectations for future revenues, which on a discounted factor makes the investment less viable.
If you had 70% margins as a result of 90% share, which becomes a 30% margin with a 60% share, then your expected returns from the next rev. of the product become different, which makes it harder to justify investing more money in the product.
WordPerfect was truly DEFEATED when it was sold off several times, because Word made it uneconomically viable except to companies with a synergistic strategy, and they failed. WordPerfect became a brand, and not a great one... and it happened in the marketplace, not the computer magazine reviews.
"The same OOo where there was a big uproar for just having a Java-dependent component in?"
how about the Java Desktop System?
I don't feel like it...
Open Office is most certainly *not* going to be a web based application. My guess is that it will be refitted to be launched by the google toolbar and allow you to use google as a storage area for your documents (do you really want to do that?). That's great that it's free though.
There is no war here, move along.
Two heavyweights throwing countless dollars down the drain trying to one-up each other and giving away tons of stuff to the development community? Best war ever :)
Let's experiment with where this could go. We're assuming that this is going to be some big internet solution - it could be made available at various prices for various markets, ranging from free for something basic up a sliding scale for varying levels of functionality, rather like webmail accounts work today. For example, I have a paid for Hushmail account, which gives me secure encrypted webmail wherever I can find a browser and JVM. Would Hush offer over-the-wire office suite and scrambled document storage if this took off? And would people pay for it? Probably yes on both counts.
But the joy of this sort of deployment is that it can be deployed within an organisation. Sun already have a powerful set of technology with SunRay, which allows the desktop client to be totally stateless, diskless, fanless. The barriers to adoption are all to do with integration with legacy Windows environments, and users' making the transition.
A "web service office suite" deployed within an organisation enables another layer of statefulness to be taken away from the legacy windows desktop. In many places the core business systems are becoming internal web services at a rate of knots, and the fat office suite, especially MS Office, is a major constraint on being completely platform independent. Sun have been putting the pieces in the jigsaw for several years, and frankly the landscape has ended up littered with things going in different directions: The original javastation; the Java Desktop System (on Suse and Solaris); SunRay on Solaris. But these should all be seen as steps on the path to delivering business computing via a "WebTone" (McNealy's expression, not mine) which is such a compelling approach that even Sun's haphazard progress can't stop it now.
What will come out here is not a "one size fits all" office.google.com "click here for StarOffice". Rather, you will see large businesses setting up their own rigs, and niche players offering basic email and now office suite style services to small businesses who won't have to have "the server" under someone's desk at all. We saw the Application Service Provider business running through the hype phase around 2000, and through the disillusionment phase 2002-3. We may now see them start to offer the right services to the right businesses in the realism phase starting shortly. Come out with your favourite buzzwords, be it Web 2.0, the WebTone or whatever, this is where it gets interesting
The last scintilla of doubt just rode out of town
We all know what happenned to the big bad IBM of yesterday...
Microsoft: "We're going to kill you!" Google: "Two can play at that game!" and thus began an evil-moustache-curling battle that would leave the entire world scarred.
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.
...on how lng it will take MS to "enhance" IE so as to make the Google/Sun software not work? There's a reason MS went to great lengths (including giving away software for free) to achieve their browser monopoly.
Seems as though if more web based applications replace current desktop apps, we may come full circle and go from the 500M+ installs back to more efficiently constructed source. One can dream.
Will my 386 box enough to run the google office or I will have to upgrade?
The forbes article really doesn't address the impact of the free web-based software. It more goes into the value of Sun shares from the partnership formed. In which case it says that the jump in Sun share trading wasn't really called for.
/. post.
In other words the Forbes article really has nothing to do with the
Instead of an AJAX office suite, wouldn't it make more sense to make it easy to save your OpenOffice.org documents online?
To the informal Microsoft war declaration "I will fucking kill Google"
Go Google!
anyone remember applix anyware? no? didn't think so.....
Is a dual-prong approach. Prong one--a free lightweight, downloadable Java office suite that saves to and opens from your Google account. Prong two--a browser-based AJAX front-end to work on your docs from other machines if you need to.
It's roughly equivalent to the architecture of Outlook--a desktop app that manipulates data stored on a central server, with a browser-based back-up. In fact the real Microsoft killer would be a hosted viable alternative to Exchange/Outlook, as this is the MS product that open source has yet to effectively compete with.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
From the Sun press release:
"The agreement aims to make it easier for users to freely obtain Sun's Java Runtime Environment (JRE), the Google Toolbar and the OpenOffice.org office productivity suite"
And they also say:
"About OpenOffice.org OpenOffice.org is an open-source project, home of the OpenOffice.org software, the most widely distributed open-source multi-platform productivity suite. The OpenOffice.org community was founded by Sun Microsystems in 2000. An active community, of which Sun is a key member, enhances and supports the OpenOffice.org office suite. "
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
I think the OpenOffice people have really shot themselves in the foot with their approach to cell data types. If A1 is formatted as text, and you put 1 in it, and B1 is A1+1, you get 1. Any text cell is treated as 0. This is baffling to end users who don't really know or care about the cell format.
Not everything has to be done server-side and downloaded to the client. Indeed, that would be very slow. Client-side is the way to go, and JavaScript allows this. GMail makes heavy use of JavaScript and GOffice undoubtedly will as well. Combined with CSS, it would not be very difficult creating a web-page Word clone without any communication to the server (for editing, I mean).
When new windows are opened, they may be loaded from the server, but that's hardly going to be a problem even over a modem. Such windows would likely be simple forms with text and no images.
~CGameProgrammer( );
If the spreadsheets are stored on the google servers where they are easilly accessed by other coworkers...
I'm tired of emailing my coworker a spreadsheet that is at a clients house, has to download the email open it, use it, close it, email it and hope I haven't done anything with it.
It's the sound of hundreds of chairs in being violently thrown across rooms in Redmond...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Instead of quibbling over nuances, consider this: Is it technically feasible to do this? Would there be any benefit? You betcha. Roger Kay's dinosaur quote below is great. It's funny, whenever you see one of those Microsoft adverts with the dinosaurs, it makes me think what a great OpenOffice add it would be, with Microsoft's Bob being one of the dinos.
I can assure you, we are quite safe from your rebel friends here.
Why is this such a big news item that it's getting back to back /. mentions? MS Office is mostly sold to and used by offices who'd never consider using a free service to type internal memos and create financial reports.
But being a GOOG holder and Gmail user, this is good news. :)
I defy you to show me a single instance of an undocumented API that makes it possible to create a better spreadsheet or word processor. It's not like the Word programmers knew the secret API WinSpellCheck() and WP didn't.
And even if Office did use undocumented APIs, they probably learned about them the same way everybody else does -- reverse engineering. It's not like Office has access to the Windows source code.
dom
When MS tried this, we all got PO'ed saying "great, and then one day they'll decide you have to pay per month to access your own files, and the next day you'll pay per file, and then eventually you'll pay per letter typed/read/modified"
:)
If I was right to have irrational fears about online-office when MS tried it in 1999, I'm sure I'm right to have the same irrational fears now that google is trying it, even if I do trust Google, deep down, to do the right thing if given the opportunity. (Scientology and other law suits took that opportunity away from them, but when they've had the choice between good and evil they've always chosen good).
Still, I like running word at home, so the bloated piece of shit can crash my computer. Why change a good thing?
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Microsoft has reportedly place a large order for chairs and other office furniture, citing recent attrition due to "unexpected breakage". Microsoft representatives declined to comment.
New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
Lighting up Bill Gate's competitive brain wiring is the stupidest mistake possible.
Microsoft is good at certain things (they never quit, they only get better, they listen to their customers and they admit when they are wrong are just a few) but what they are REALLY good at is polishing off the competition - and Google just made themselves the competition.
You could argue that MS picked the fight by going into the search business BUT that was like BUSINESS. This is PERSONAL.
I give Google 5-7 years on the outside.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is *laughably guilty*. Check the evidence.
Given my lasting memory of Forbes is him in fishnets playing at my brother's 18th, I really wouldn't trust his technology news reporting.
the beauty of this is that:
1) it mitigates "office document attachment" syndrome by letting you just post a link to your internet-stored document in e-mail instead of an attachment;
2) the above fact combined with web-based editing means that you don't have to care if someone has openoffice/staroffice installed before you send them an OpenDocument format document. they can view and edit it on-line.
in other words, web-editability destroys the lemming-lock-in effect caused by MS-Office ubiquity.
the only problem i see is the confidentiality aspect. i don't want google or anyone else having access to my document content. if they can solve this (either by storing documents encrypted at the client, or by permitting those that care to set up their own file storage via webdav over ssl or sftp or something.
I just realise that forbes.com is a business/finace magazine/website, and probably nothing to do with the legend of a drummer from the classic years of my school. He came back though (from Reading) recently, only to play Ab. rock to much acclaimation.
Microsoft to heavily invest in chairs. Balmer rumored to be working out.
Even if the rumor is completely true, no company is going to trust Google to host their internal documents.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, post on Slashdot about it.
I find it very interesting that these two big companies only mention OpenOffice. They don't talk about StarOffice at all.
Read the press releases from Sun & Google: Sun's Press Release, sun.com Featured Article, Google's Press Release . None of these mention "StarOffice". They all discuss "OpenOffice".
Normally when Sun talks about StarOffice/OpenOffice, they mostly talk about their own StarOffice product. I wonder why they don't talk about it in regards to this partnership? Does OpenOffice simply have better mindshare? Are there funny licensing reasons preventing Google from distributing StarOffice? Does Google want to distribute a more pure OSS project? Has Sun given up on StarOffice outside the corporate environment?
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
As far as I know, MS has never sued anyone over a software patent.
Yes, they could pull a Darl if they started really losing money/market share, but that doesn't seem to be happening right now.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Wow, it works just like MS Office - it breaks before I even start using it!
I don't want to sound too crazy with my radical notions, but they could just drop the ".org" from the name.
"According to the Inquirer..."
what the crap? have we sunk that low, we need google rumors from the Inquirer
I think at this point google will have finally crossed the line. I am good with google maps , they are the best, and the search and even the calculator. But google making a workd processor and a spread sheet, thats just not right. Well if they do it will take a long time to convince the major purchasers of microsoft software to even want to change systems. The microsoft stuff is so simple to use and effective that i think gooogle will have a hard time makeing competeable software. Well anyway as a long time microsoft buyer and happy user i would have to say that if google goes after them then that will def. be the last time I "google" anything!
I didn't know about gmail POP acess. Thanks! BTW, in the early days of the web, I was looking at old terminals and discovered APL terminals. APL terminals were designed to use the APL language (they had a special keyboard with extra characters) They were part of an assumption that computer processing was going to be offered like a utility. Obviously this was quite a while ago, I did my research from books more than the internet. It is amazing how the PC brought us decentralized information and communication services. Things could have been much different.
What does Google intend to do with the enemy combatants who will eventually be captured?
Look at Google Search Appliance.
This will work the same way. They'll sell you an appliance server that will serve to you locally and store locally.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
Google says:
"I'm TONY MONTANA!"
Here's one
I knocked it out in a couple minutes. No XML parsing, just simple request and innterHTML.
One problem. XmlHttpRequest is sandboxed in much the same way Java applets are.
They can only make requests back to the host they originated from. So I defaulted in an address.
"If they have both, tell them we use Linux. And if they have that, tell them the computers are down." -Dave Chapelle
Making office tools on the web does not make any sense on itself. When you could collaborate in group on an office document online, that would open up worlds. A lot of issues appear, but with those issues a lot of opportunities.
Remember the Google Appliance. Buy it, slip it in a rack, and have google search and index your intranet all day long?
Now include a Web Based "Office" Suite, and store the docs on the intranet in a common place.
Tada! Now business like it too!
Everyone is hyping this out of control, if you look at the actual deal, the main thing going on is that Google gets to have it's spyware-like toolbar installed when you install Java. Because the Java install needed more bloat.
Let me get this straight, you download an anoying browser toolbar and you get free software with it? Usually it`s the other way around...
But please, can we stop comparing google and microsoft already? The only similarity they have is that they are both in the nasdaq... I understand that makes them competitors for people who don`t look further than stock markets but can can we, at least in the "news for nerds" world, look for the real wars? Like, I don`t, know sun, apple and all the other vertical unix guys? Remember "small but unix" is a market IBM got out of because it saw no future. Do you see any "redhat declares war on sun" speculation? The "netcraft confirms, bsd dying" comments are the closest we get I am afraid.
Also the nasdaq has nothing to do with innovation... Sorry folks. Business and innovation are a great mix, kinda like wodka and coke... but in real life they are just as separate things most of the time. Sorry nasdaq guys, but just becouse you don`t understand something doesn`t mean it`s new. Everyone knows new ideas always come from people who are bored and have some darpa funded time to waste at university/school. These Ideas then go through a standard body that does the engineering work, then businesses f@#$ it up and the biggest guy buys the business the fu$#%ed up the least or just patents the idea and clones it... and then you can buy it as a product or service. Thats how innovation works... as you can see, there is a bit of nasdaq right at the end of the chain there.
Microsoft is the living proof that its cheaper to buy innovation than it is to have a dedicated innovation staff.
- They bought dos
- basic wasn`t new
- bought the vms people to do windows NT
- cloned the gui idea
- bought internet explorer (when they tried to do their own internet)
- rip of java with
.net (They might even do a better job of what java does. Ofcourse java is great for what it was intended (embedded stuff) in theory...)
- bough SQL server (sybase)
- the centralised authentication in NT wasn`t new, dcom wasn`t new
- Active directory does the X.500 directory idea (using kerberos and ldap) just like novell did (btw, did microsoft declare war one novell back then?)
Ofcourse google really does do the paying for people who do 9 to 5 innovation work... I can`t deny that. But thats just an accident! It just heapons sometimes when coorporations have so much money that they forget to fire the creative peopleOne offers search and ad services, the other software products you buy once and use for a long time (no matter how they bundle, licence and shrink wrap them into offers you can`t refuse) Its amazing that the nasdaq talking heads seem to have missed the part of their education where the diffrences between services and product you can break by hitting them with a hammer were discussed.
Google offering an openoffice mirror doesn`t change a thing, even if they bundle desktop search and/or toolbars... (Did anyone notice all this still runs on windows and *needs* ms office import filters?) If microsoft stopped trying to imitate and buy its way into markets, then wake me up.
Having my confidential documents stored on someone else's servers is the dumbest thing ever. Nobody would be stupid enough to buy-- oh wait, they're targeting MS Office users. Never mind.
This is a zen post. A koan.
And yes, I agree (so far, anyway) that this Google/Sun internet office thingy is mostly just an innovative marketing scheme for Google and Sun.
-rcmiv
Seriously guys, no one has said anything about this becoming a software release of any sort. This is nothing more then hype and rumor getting reported as real journalism, again. I am actually getting tired of the lack of factual checking several online "news" sites are doing these days (The Inquirer, Slashdot...I am looking at you). Heck analysts feel that the only reason this happened is because Google's CEO spent 14 years working at Sun under Sun's CEO. So really, this is probably not much more then Google helping out Sun.
You see Sun has minimal to no real market name. Most people have no clue what they have done and what they do. However, most everyone has heard of Google, and at least half the people in the country have heard about this Google-Microsoft feud (or Sun's feud with M$). So to the outsider not in the know this comes off as two M$ rivals coming together to take down the giant. The problem is, right now at least, it appears to be nothing more then a publicity stunt. We'll see if that changes in the future, but I will not hold my breath.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Google will win for this reason: When google makes something it makes it easier for the average user to use!!! All we need now is Goooginx
If You can read this sig you are on the internet
I must have missed something...when did they change their motto to "Vanquish evil"?
We all know what happenned to the big bad IBM of yesterday...
Their plan worked so well they became a virtual monopoly and got stomped on by the US Federal government? I think Google would be happy with that.
Is it IBM -> Microsoft -> Google?
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
One of the big reasons that I might be interested in a web based word application is version control. How many times have you had a document get out of date and emailed around and basically totally messed up? Microsoft is attempting to address this with Sharepoint but last time I used it when your word document opened up in IE it felt wrong and things didn't save right, it was a mess.
It seems like there are a few wikis out there (JotSpot) that try to give users the feel as though they are editing a word doc but as a JotSpot user I can report that they still have some bugs to iron out, after struggling with the GUI editor I just use the text editor with wiki markup. Google could make some waves in this space.
this is an EXACT example
Because of this headline, it could be the start of a cold war in the technology era (if you want to call it that). However, in this case, it's actually a good thing. If Google is offering essentially office for free then Microsoft might have to to compete.
It's great that Google would deliver spreadsheets and word processing to the browser... but that browser still needs to sit on an OS.
Why not a Google Linux distro?
Having a distro with a "brand name" like Google would likely get a lot of rd party apps ported to it.
Sure, they have the "if it's not broken, don't fix it" mentality. "And if it breaks, shake it a little" still works wonders. OK I AM OUTA HERE. IF ANYONE NEEDS ME, I'LL BE AT THE OTHER END OF THAT ROPE TIED TO THE CEILING.
printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
-- myself
Great. Crappy access to crappy software. I can see this being useful maybe twice in my entire life.
Wonder to what extent the end users are going to benefit.
Slashdot = Sarcasm
i guess the 'google declares war on microsoft' had nothing to do with that microsoft windows thing.
-1 without a reason, that's always nice.
Buy stock in Google at discounted price.
Invent and write story in blog that Google will destroy Microsoft. People believe it because they want to.
Sell and maybe even Short stock in Google.
Wait 3 days for everyone to realize the lies.
Buy stock at even more discounted price.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
OpenOffice comes free already, why would anyone use a online google version ?
If google declares war on Microsoft, that means they're going to lose.
I mean really, when was the last time anyone's ever won in any marketplace against Microsoft?
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Ya, that's what I'd do, worry about what infoworld has to say over Forbes. /sigh
I don't think its good news for Redmond based company. But that's Google. There is at least more than one web based office application is available like Writely (The Web Word Processor), and NumSum (Web Spreadsheet). Both are in beta stages. I personally worked on both of them and they have a long way to go. When I heard Google is partnering with Sun to make OpenOffice available online, I was thrilled. Its like if Google is doing something, it must be good. I don't know how long its going to take them to have a beta version out. I am waiting. http://gupta-puneet.blogspot.com/2005/10/google-of fice.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_characters_from _The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Slartibartfa st
i love how forbes is pro microsoft... and all others could care less about them and report the truth... oh wait will microsoft just wait an other year to release vista and then put in anti google software?
(yes i know i suck at spelling fell free to correct my grammar and/or spellin i dont care, im still not going to change