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Hands on: Google Spreadsheets
feminazi writes "Google spreadsheets are more powerful than you might think, according to Richard Ericson. The free, Web-based service doesn't currently offer encryption, but the clean interface has standard drop-down menus, icons and buttons (just when MS is switching to "ribbons"). You can use it to work with existing files and "Formatting is simple, direct and fast. ... Sort, does precisely what you'd expect." Most importantly, it has most of Excel's functions -- including some that aren't listed or documented." We covered the launch of this program last week.
Anybody nervous that Google may be letting their eye off the ball (their original business model) by going off on these tangential projects?
The key to this being an "Excel Killer" is not that it needs to be able to do everything (or even most) of what Excel can do. Most people barely use probably 2% of Excel's capabilities, and don't even know how to use much of the other 98%.
The key to putting some hurt onto Excel sales, and MS Office in general is for Google to offer things like this that are "good enough" for the mass of home users that use 2% of Excel's product offerings. I personally have started using this for a couple personal spreadsheets that I have, where the network availability is more useful than having the whiz-bang Excel features.
Let's not forget that Google has also purchased Writely, which may be a "good enough" web based word processor to start attracting the mass of people who use Word as a fancy notepad.exe with spell-check. I don't need a heavy duty Word processor for most of what I do, and many other home users don't either. Writely is not yet available for users to register, unless they got in pre-Google.
While the Writely and Google Spreadsheets combo are not "killer apps" in terms of features, they may have enough functionality to put a serious dent in the very low end of Microsoft's user base.
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Sorry, couldn't resist. The page is slashdotted before any comments.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Does that include vulnerabilities that act as infection vehicles for viruses/worms?
I talk about stuff.
I am really wondering about this. I mean I am sure it is on the list of things to do, but I would think the OpenDocument Format would have been a bit easier to implement then working with XLS would have been. Granted more people use Excel then OOo, but I still find it strange that ODF wasn't in the list of early supported file formats.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
Eh, thanks but no thanks. Very interesting but useless.
The key to this being an "Excel Killer" is not that it needs to be able to do everything (or even most) of what Excel can do. Most people barely use probably 2% of Excel's capabilities, and don't even know how to use much of the other 98%.
Yeah, but you still need to get to the 2% mark. I'm looking at this review, and I am utterly dumbfounded at some of the features it's lacking. For example, Charts would be incredibly easy to compute on the server, then download as images. Alternatively, they could use SVG support, or canvas support, or Javascript Drawings. Yet they completely leave charts out! I don't know of a single Excel user who hasn't charted their data at some point in time. If Google isn't supporting this, then they can expect users to dislike their spreadsheet.
Similarly, the lack of online help is a no-no for a spreadsheet program. Users still need to do computations, even if they're as simple as addition, subtraction, averaging, and weighted averaging. Failing to include online help means that users will have no idea how to properly compute these formulas. Even just dropping the expected args into the text field would do wonders for usability!
All in all, this article makes me believe that Google is buying into this "users don't need that much" mantra that makes sites like ajaxLaunch so laughable. GMail "won" because it provided a completely new way to work with email. It wasn't just the best Webmail apps, it was better than even installable apps! If Google wants to follow that success, they need to take that sort of innovation (*blech* sorry, weasel word) into their other office products. Otherwise, they're going nowhere, fast.
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> While the Writely and Google Spreadsheets combo are not "killer apps" in terms of features
Actually, Writely and Google Spreadsheet are Labs toys right now. However fast forward one year, with Firefox sporting an embedded database, and Writely and Spreadsheets will look far less toy-like. Add support for rich controls from the WHAT-WG and in a couple of ears you have an office suite you can download on demand and run inside your browser. And you can work with it offline.
And if you think Microsoft hasn't read the writing on the wall, you haven't been looking at XAML and IE7 very closely.
Only problem with "Most people barely use 2% of Excel's capabilities, let's implement just that 2%" theory is - not all people use the same 2% of Excel, or any other software packet.
Wheee!
Now if they'd built an online version of Improv, or "advance" (if I remember the name correctly), I'd be more interested and impressed. Why not explore the "spreadsheet space" a bit more - what if it were built around constraint propagation (so changes would propagate both ways)?
I know, I know. People expect the standard sort of spreadsheet, they know how it works, they've already pushed past the hump of the learning curve, so they don't want to learn anything different.
When I was at work, I decided to give Google Spreadsheets a shot (it wasn't for anything critical, just some simple calculations). I noticed one feature that, surprisingly, was not implemented--as far as I know, Google Spreadsheets can't merge cells vertically. Cells can only be merged horizontally. I ended up having to use Excel because of this one tiny missing feature. However, it's still in beta, and I am really impressed with what they've done. It's the second-coolest AJAX app out there (the first being Meebo).
Keep up the good work, Google!
Ride the skies
The spreadsheet was the first "killer app" for the microcomputer, wasn't it? Be interesting for the humble spreadsheet to still wield such importance after all this time.
This could be big for Google, depending how they play it. It's not necessarily just the home user that could be the eventual target, the could offer the back end to businesses, ditto for other "office" apps. That would arguably be much more important, if in fact they are targetting taking on microsoft in that area, long term.
Oh no... it's the future.
TFA mentions you lose some formatting...but I've had a ton of problems importing XLS. The majority of the time it adds random characters to the cells.
Overall, I agree that it'll be a cool app. Right now it's just very beta and not usable in the real world so it's difficult to give a real review.
Google's doing this in a rather smart way, IMHO...
They're not chasing Excel's market. Nobody's going to be using this for business-critical applications, and this won't challenge the corporate market for Office. What Google is doing is chasing the long tail of the market - the people who might want to use a spreadsheet, but have no need for Excel. Let's face it, for a quick and dirty budget, a team roster, or a simple document, Excel is more than overkill.
What Google Spreadsheets has that Excel doesn't is simple collaboration -- no need to install SharePoint servers or any of that other Microsoft lock-in garbage required. Just add a few emails to a field and you're done. That is ideal for a whole host of simple, small projects. Say you're running a small business and want to have online schedules -- would you use Excel and some expensive Microsoft server setup, or just make a simple spreadsheet with Google and share it amongst your employees? It seems pretty easy to guess which one is the easiest and least painful option to someone without an IT budget.
Google knows that if they try to compete with Office, they'll get crushed. So they're not doing that at all. Google Spreadsheets isn't an enterprise app, it's a quick and dirty system for simple tasks -- and it excels at being what it is. By capturing that long tail of users who don't need Excels features and won't pay Excel's price, Google can pick up a sizeable user base. The real question is what Google intends to do with those users and how they'll turn this into a revenue generator.
I imagine if they wanted to put the hurt on MS's Excel sales, they'd target the business user, not the home user.
I really don't think Google is out on a crusade to hurt MS. It probably doesn't care about MS one way or the other. It cares about driving more people to its search engine/advertising and creating a buzz, and if some web app does that for them, great. And if it hurts MS too, that might be a good thing (in their POV). Or maybe not.
The only way I can see MS hurting google is if they make IE point to MSN like Firefox does with Google on the top right search box. (Perhaps they've already done this, haven't used IE in a long time.) Other than that, they are in seperate markets, no matter how much MS wants to try to have a finger in every pie.
When I read the post, the first thing that occured to me was Mark Lucovsky Post, about Shipping Software. It was one of the reasons why he quit Microsoft.
Shipping Software. That's what its about now. Anyway, it does not mean Microsoft is standing still though. It is just that they have chosen to do it another way. Google looks at AJAX powered, HTML based applications. Firefox downloads help too, it isnt surprising they are offering $1 for every Firefox referral. Microsoft will depend on .Net, XAML and IE for application delivery. No doubt they will be more capable, compared to HTML. But only if you overlook the lockin.
Ahh.. i dont know. But yes, online Word will not be far off.
Life is a conviction.
Following that description was an image which apparently shows a ribbon. I'm still having difficulty grasping where the ribbon starts and other user interface controls end because the image appears to be almost entirely full of user interface controls.
The webpage went on to say: "One of the concepts behind the Ribbon is that it's the one and only place to look for functionality in the product. If you want to look through Word 2003 to find an unfamiliar command, you need to look through 3 levels of hierarchical menus, open up 31 toolbars and peruse about 20 Task Panes. It's hard to formulate a "hunting" strategy to find the thing you're looking for because there's no logical path through all of the UI."
Well, this is one of those Duh! statements. There's no logical path through the User Interface because Microsoft has no strong conceptual model of the document or the application functionality. Therefore functions are placed almost at random within the menus, toolbars and task panes.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the menus were supposed to expose all the application functionality. "Ribbons" sound to me as though they are merely replacing menus. Perhaps they have more flexible layout.
Overall it seems to me like Microsoft is implementing Ribbons as yet more eye candy to attract people to upgrade. The talk of increased usability is merely lip service, misdirection from the fundamental problem that I have with Microsoft's user interfaces. The page mentions that "most people don't click on an unlabeled 16x16 icon". Microsoft's at fault here for their feature-driven requirements. It seems to me that a requirement of Microsoft user interfaces (particularly Word and Excel) is that every possible piece of screen real estate needs to have some function: either an icon or clicking with the mouse will do something. That makes the interface incredibly busy - not good for newbies, perhaps not necessary for experienced users.
What is the point of having another spreadsheet? We have an industry leader, Excel. Not only is this google offering lagging 10 years behind in features and usability, it is plain ugly! If people actually believe we need another spreadsheet-program (which we really don't), then they should start making something that not actually sucks.. I have yet to see something even resemble Excel in usability.
According to these, this useful application is potentially something that evolved based on smaller projects and a common code-base.
Admittedly, I've never used a spreadsheet for more than its basic functions (organizing data in columns for personal finances or some of the homebrew programming projects I work on), but if X% of Excel users are only utilizing Y% of the program's capabilities (where Y is a significantly small percentage of the program's full feature-set), any company can come along, produce a simple app which elegantly handles the most-sought-for features, and voila, competitor. From what I've seen of the managerial staff at work, the only thing Google Spreadsheets is missing to be a 'real' (read: truly useful for aforementioned X% of users) spreadsheet app, is a chart wizard.
The key to putting some hurt onto Excel sales, and MS Office in general is for Google to offer things like this that are "good enough" for the mass of home users that use 2% of Excel's product offerings.
But isn't Open Office also "good enough", and just as free? How come we don't see that eating into MS's consumer Office sales?
Yet they completely leave charts out! I don't know of a single Excel user who hasn't charted their data at some point in time. If Google isn't supporting this, then they can expect users to dislike their spreadsheet.
I don't use charting on Excel, and I gather a lot of others don't either. A fairly sizable number of people use excel in place of a database for things like contact management or inventories. It's not a feature that'd be critical to have available in a beta test.
When we expect an Open Source clone of these technologies at sourceforge? Less than one year and half?
Join this google experiment.
I'll stick with keeping spreadsheets on my own hard drive and servers, created with OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Excel.
Thanks, but no thanks Google. I do use gmail for personal stuff but I do not and will not use hosted office suites. I have no desire for you to know how much I weigh, what my client lists are, how much I spend, my DVD and CD collections, or anything else I might use a spreadsheet for.
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I'm using it to manage the world cup scores which are shared with another ppl I know, and the spreadsheet is cool I really didn't expected it to support formulas but It Does and i'm using them :)
... And is doing it pretty sucsessfully. Nearly every project they try has been fairly sucsessful, with many being very sucsessful (Gmail and Google Video) And I, for one, welcome our new Google overloards, and have been for years.
Given that its key feature is multi-user editing, I would have thought its primary target was biz.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
I think the bigger story here is that Google appears to be building an entire web-based office suite to go toe to toe with Microsoft (and OO.o?). They already have a mail client, word processor (Writely), and spreadsheet. What's next?
The key to this being an "Excel Killer" is not that it needs to be able to do everything (or even most) of what Excel can do. Most people barely use probably 2% of Excel's capabilities, and don't even know how to use much of the other 98%.
Who's saying it's an "Excel Killer"? My take is that it's yet another beta that Google tossed out. As others have pointed out, if Google were actually planning such a thing, they'd target the business users (which is where the money is). That means in particular, that web-based spreadsheets are out since the user doesn't have full control over the data. This is a fundamental problem with a lot of Google's tools. Google simply has far too much control over that data for serious companies to use it.Compatability with existing and old file formats is key there. If it cannot read and format just the same as the original, who is going to want to go through and reformat however umpteen million documents in order to have them work right under the new office suite? It's easier to just use what you're using instead.
That and interface. Users have to be able to easily figure out how to do things, else they don't get used.
Although I find the dynamic of databases on 'both ends' rather interesting, I thought Mozilla were introducing SQLite into Firefox (for bookmarks etc), but now they're introducing Apache Derby too?
Signatures are a waste of bandwi (buffering...)
I want my effin' easter eggs!
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THANK GOD!!!
Working a bit in litigation support, I know that a significant amount of time and money is spent trying to make excel spreadsheets presentable as evidence in a courtroom (Arthur Anderson anyone?). There is an entire industry supported by excel being a whopping pile of crap to work with. If a better alternative were to take the market, it would definitely be championed by a world full of corporate lawyers. And I'm sure the lack of privacy is making the NSA positively bubbling with anticipation.
7h3$3 4r3n'7 7h3 Ðr01Ð$ ¥0 4r3 £00|{1n9 f0r. M0v3 4£0n9. --OB1
I thought it might be interesting to import into Google Spreadsheets the database I keep of my movie collection. That's about 2,000 lines long, by a few columns, but first I just tried a single column of titles. Nothing fancy -- just a sorted list. I made a .csv file and uploaded it -- it was only about 50K, so that step was plenty fast.
:-) A pity, 'cause having these online from anywhere I can get to Google was an intriguing idea (although I have my own site for that). My impression of Google Spreadsheet is "neat, but basically toy." I don't use Excel very often either, but I do know it has no trouble with spreadsheets that are tens of thousands of lines long (nor would I expect any modern standalone spreadsheet to).
When I tried to actually open the imported spreadsheet with Google Spreadsheet, however, it just hung. I waited about an hour then killed Firefox. Tried twice with the same result.
That was with 2,000 lines; I guess I'm not going to be trying the application out with my 30,000-line book collection database or my 25,000-line record collection database any time soon
Kiscica
I mean, you've all heard the 80-20 (or 90-10, depending who you ask) law - and it's a valid point that there are many people still running Office 97, since it does everything they need from it. Makes you wonder whether it was really worth Google's while including these features - I guess anyone that uses them is likely to really need them, and is a power-user likely to trust Google as their primary(/only) spreadsheet app?
For the moment, Web 2.0 stuff is undoubtedly cool and useful (Google's own Maps and GMail both good examples of both), but I wouldn't really want to rely on it. It'd be like only having a mobile phone - most of the time you don't miss a landline, but when you need to make an emergency call, you don't want to be without one. Anyone else feel the same?
(Don't get me wrong, for casual stuff like writing birthday letters this'd be great - I'm thinking of the people running businesses off it here.)
My, that was a yummy potato!
Honestly, I look at it as a matter of iterations. GMail has become better since it launched. It now has spell checking, and draft autosave, and calendar integration - in other words, Google's pretty good at iterating their apps. They seem far less likely to overdevelop than to underdevelop...and why not?
Look at 37signals. Ruby on Rails has been around for a long time, and it keeps getting better, but it's pretty blatantly incremental. They just didn't forget the 'release often' part of the equation, that so many monolithic software packages ignore.
Our startup has an app right now that's pretty useful. We're at six months of development. We didn't wait until it was perfect to offer it to the public. It has some bumps here and there, and some silly seeming features - much of this is our just adding stuff to see how users will utilize it. Right now I have RSS feeds for each data element in the app - they just show the upcoming events and notes for that element. It's a blatantly useless feature in its current stage. But the methods I had to develop on the way are going to make it easier for me to do more robust reporting, for instance. We're going slow but steady, and so is Google. Why question this?
Once again - look at ViaWeb. They released early and often, and listened to the users. Why do people want to doubt Google? ajaxLaunch is a joke, but that's because there was absolutely no reason to use it. Google Spreadsheets, though, currently allows all kinds of spreadsheetable things - network diagrams, logistics management mini-apps, etc - to be kept track of. Without buying a $200 package that is overkill. And allows remote editing of these sheets. Please explain to me how this merits complaint...
-knewter
"The only way I can see MS hurting google is if they make IE point to MSN like Firefox does with Google"
Well, IE already defaults to MSN.com with a new Windows installation, and MSN is the default search engine if you type stuff into the browser it doesn't recognize. That's in IE6 though.
I do recall reading something here about MS putting MSN as the only 'preinstalled' search engine in the IE7 search box, although that was in an IE7 beta so it's possible the release will have additional searches installed. But, that doesn't help much if the DEFAULT search engine selected is MSN. We'll just have to see when IE7 goes to release.
We are the fire that lights our world.. and we are the fire that consumes it.
Just something I noticed. If you have a GMail account, and you've requested to be in the Beta Testing of the spreadsheet program, you may already be approved! I never received a confirmation from Google (perhaps it got caught in the Spam filter?), but I just went to http://spreadsheets.google.com/ and found that I could log in!
I have to say, the sheet has a nice feel to it. It really reminds you of Excel or OpenOffice Calc. Unfortunately, this comparison is quickly disappated once you start using it. Things I've noticed:
1. Formulas are edited in the cell rather than having a text field on top. This is REALLY annoying to anyone who uses a spreadsheet program regularly. There is an uneditable text field at the top (doesn't work right in Mozilla 1.7.12), but it's not useful for anything other than ogleing at.
2. Auto-resizing by double-clicking doesn't work. This is a core feature that I should think that everyone uses.
3. No size indicator when changing cell sizes. I don't know about anyone else, but I always try to resize my sheets to about 14.25 points high, as this looks best. In addition, the indicator is a good way of knowing that you've got the right size for a row, rather than by messing with trial and error.
4. You're limited to 100 x T cells. If you're one of those people with a lot of data, good luck. It doesn't look like Google will let you store it without manually inserting enough rows or columns to hold it all.
5. The formatting menu is useless. It's got a few data types, and that is IT. If you need a custom style, or a date in one of the billion other formats, you're SOL.
6. No cell borders. Raise your hand if you tend to mark headers with a cell border. (/Me raises hand.)
7. The "Freeze Rows" command makes no sense. Why are you choosing the number of rows from a menu, when a multiple row-select exists?
8. Sorting! Yippe! Now I can make my sheet into a database! (/sarcasm) Seriously, this feature actually works. I was expecting it to choke on numbers by treating them as text, but it automatically sorted then correctly. Score one for the team.
There's a lot of other minor annoyances that I won't get into, but the above are the big ones. Unfortunately, I've just about covered 90% of the functionality. My verdict? It's not ready for prime time. If Google wanted to do this, perhaps they should have teamed up with Sun's StarOffice team.
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Oh, I linked to Derby because they have a credible demo. Really, any storage engine could be used, or even multiple storage engines (unless of course the browser vendor bundled one, in which case you'd be better off targeting just that engine).
Awwww crap! The deal's off! I'm the one person in the omniverse that actually uses it!
[Doctor Evil] No. Not really.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Let's see... -I have a "free" copy of Office2K3. -I can use the free Google Spreadsheet that relies upon my internet connection. -I have a free installation of OpenOffice. I do love what Google's doing, but until I can install it locally (without the worry of spyware/malware/ads/tiny strippers), I won't feel 100% at ease using it.
Currently theta testing the prototype "Event Horizon" server-scaled desktop box with a 50 Gigameg of Ram.
Is Google even trying to keep secret their intentions to create an OS independent computing platform. I imagine their end goal is a Google OS appliance, perhaps even being touted as being "OS free."
I wonder what would happen if you set up a spreadsheet with assorted illegal drugs, prices, and people. How about weapons and ammo, porn, etc? No real information, obviously, but just to trigger the all seeing eyes that want to get in everyones lives.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Just last week I was wishing there were an online spreadsheet so I could organize some simple budgets from the thousand different computers I use. I love having my gmail account because it's a decent enough mail client that I can access from anywhere and doesn't require any maintenance on my part.
But the spreadsheet was just not ready for prime time. The limitations of a browser hacked to do what really should be done by a local app really showed. Even the most basic things didn't work as expected (copy/paste buttons instead of working shortcuts? No thanks.)
What would be ideal would be enough easily browsable online storage so that I could work on my spreadsheet locally and save it online. There's no way for Google to make money off such a thing, though, so I don't see it happening. (And yes, I know about the gmail-based filesystem that Linux has.)
I really wish we'd get away from the idea that all of these apps have to be implemented in a browser over HTTP. There's a reason nobody ever developed a GUI toolkit that works like that -- and it's because it's a horrible mess, and makes simple things hard and hard things impossible.
Unfortunately, with the way people are diving head-first into AJAX because it's the latest thing, I'm sure we'll be stuck with it forever.
Next stop -- an AJAX web browser. Mostly feature complete.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
You might be right. But charting is a resource hungry feature. To one person charting is important, to another, other feature is important. If we try to please everyone, you will once again have 'Bloatware'.
I think what Google is doing is just right. Those who require not-so-used feature can always use Excel or other alternatives.
Keep-it-simple is the mantra I would prefer.
I'm working with team in another country right now. We've been emailing Excel sheets back and forth to track a variety of issues. This is a tool that is perfect for our needs.
We don't need super encrypted security, but we do need an easy way to keep our work in sync. We really don't want to start installing new tools for just one project.
Google has winner on their hands with this one. It's good enough for many jobs, simpler than Excel, and makes sharing a spreadsheet simple and fast.
Three Squirrels
Well, anything is better than the current Apple spreadsheet offering.
The space unintentionally left unblank.
After downloading the Office 2007 beta 2 and playing around with the new "ribbon" interface, I'm starting to wonder whether Microsoft is shooting itself in the foot with such a radical redesign. For average user (i.e. not readers of Slashdot), the new design will require some major re-training, which most people don't tolerate well. For tons of people, they are just now finally getting to know how to use all the functions of Word/Excel/PPT, only to have MS completely redesign it.
In the past, this wouldn't have mattered much...Office was simply the best option around. Now there are many options, online and offline (OpenOffice.org, Writely, AjaxWrite, etc.) that essentially mimic the functionality and design of the existing Office.
The convergence of the radical design and the recent introduction of these other options that don't require much re-training on the part of the average user MIGHT just shift the balance away from MS.
Of course, MS won't go down without a fight and you can bet that m/billions of dollars in marketing will by plenty of users, plus all the corporate IT buyers won't consider purchasing anything but MS for their minions.
The main things that will kill these "Office-Killers" are security and the ability to monetize the software.
Yeah. This meme is kinda the opposite of the long-tail meme that's being making it's rounds.
On the one hand you have people telling you that you don't need to engage in software bloat, you don't need to add every single feature, you don't need to give the consumer every signle option or customizability in a product or offering.
On the other hand, you have countless numbers of folks touting the long-tail, whether it's the success of Amazon, or eBay, or Netflix, or what-have-you. The idea is that in offering every single last possible thing any consumer could conceive of wanting, you'll then doi more business with the obscure stuff than with the 20% most common/popular stuff.
So which is it? Do we keep things simple stupid? Do we offer limited functionality? Things that only do one thing and do it really well? Or do we offer swiss army knives of features/products? Do we appeal to every possible need and win out in the long run because no one just uses that initial 20%?
Let's settle this meme war once and for all.
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I've worked with it on exactly one relatively simple spreadsheet, and I found numerous bugs just in that time:
* Some important formatting disappeared. Not just column widths, but numerical formatting. The difference between "currency" and "not currency" is very important for the look of the sheet.
* Re-exporting to Excel had a bug: it capitalized the sheet names, but didn't propagate that to formulas. Any formula that referenced another sheet became #VALUE
* Even for the small spreadsheet I was using (a few sheets, dozens-not-thousands of rows and columns), scrolling was very, ver slow.
This fairly simple sheet is what I think of as a canonical app for Google Spreadsheets: not mission critical, not large, not full of database lookups or macros. Maybe those are just beta complaints, but I've got to concur with your verdict: not ready for prime time.
I find it sad that you and slashdotters in general support the idea that a product with 2% of the functionality of a richer product should "kill" off the richer product. If that's the future of software, then society is in for a world of crapware. Sure, the crapware will be "free" (as in beer), but that's because the crapware will be so primitive that a developer has no choice but to give it away for free (and support it with ads and whatnot). You support the idea of society being without rich products for the sake of your ideology (or your Microsoft hatred)? Very sad indeed.
Also very hypocritcal on the part of the typical slashdotter. Google's web apps are free as in beer, not as in speech. Google does not release the code of their web apps, so the community is not allowed to "redistribute" the web apps (i.e. host them on other sites for free), nor is the community allowed to derive works from Google's code and "distribute" the derivations (i.e. host them on non-Google sites for free). Also note that the GPL doesn't cover web apps (allowing Google and others to use GPL code in their web apps and distributing those web apps to the public without releasing the code), so as software development moves more and more to feature-deprived web apps, the GPL loses more and more power. In a world where virtually all software is feature-deprived web apps, the GPL is completely irrelevant.
Seems that when it comes down to it, slashdotters are much more concerned with free as in beer than free as in speech.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
As a life long student of the markets, I've got a large number of spreadsheets that I use to track various indices, shares, bond prices, what have you. I'm currently using .Mac across several machines, and thought I'd give Google Spreadsheets a try.
.Mac is ok, but this would allow me to share and do other neat stuff.
I tried to upload daily NYSE closing prices from 1929 to date, about 21K rows and roughly twenty columns. It was a native XLS, and after maybe five minutes I got an error message, something along the lines of "Opps! We can't process your request at this time".
Oh well - it's beta so I'm not too fussed. This will really help though if I can keep all my trading spreadsheets up on Google and acccess them from pretty much any web enabled system.
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Not only those, but I just had it futz up my numbers. I loaded my Moon Shot Cost Calculator spreadsheet into Google SpreadSheet to see what would happen. Interestingly, it only displays the rows and columns I used. It also improperly sized column "C" so that "Wild Ass Guess" became "Wild Ass". :-P
:-(
The real problem, however, was that it automatically used integers for the computations. As a result, the mass ratio shows up as "0" rather than ".996". All calculations that follow from that one (pretty much everything) are thus zeroed out. With a more complex spreadsheet, you might never notice.
Frustratingly, there was no scientific or floating-point number option. I had to chose percent rounded to 2 decimal places to get the calculation to be correct. Not good.
As you mentioned, dollars also show up as just numbers rather than dollars. This also changes the look of the spreadsheet.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
understanding why anyone would rely on a Web email application. When you don't control the processor being used to manage email, how can you be sure it's safe and secure?
Google is trying to distract microsoft in a big way. Some small apps and strategically done publicity will have the whole world raving about "the Office Killer" from Google. It will surely hurt MS's core competency. At the same time it will also divert MS and others from concentrating on Google's USP, search. /bin/laden) and charts and all other frills.
Not that I'm saying google spreadsheet is an eye wash. I have used it and I liked it. But it is not an excel killer. More akin to my cousin's final semester project. Cute, Usable but not an office alternative for vast majority of users - not unles it has macros ( yeah, I know they are the next in security threat after
Edit-in-place has been something I've wished every spreadsheet app would do for quite a long time. Its different, sure, but to me its good different.
Pray tell, what are you referring to? Every spreadsheet program I've ever used allows for edit in-place, in addition to the text field. The problem is that edit in-place is very confining, and is usually only used for quick edits. The text field not only provides much more space, but it allows for more complex controls for formulas. Dropping the separate text field in favor of only edit in-place is my issue, not so much the fact that it's included.
Also, their implementation of edit in-place can be frustrating. In most spreadsheets, clicking off the cell will disable editing mode. In Google SpreadSheet, it deposits the selected fields into the cell. The only way to exit editing mode is to hit ENTER or ESC. Not particularly usable, IMHO. Of course, that is a matter of what I'm used to, so your preference may vary.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I wonder what percent of Slashdot Google owns?? Whatever it is, they should consider dumping more money into it after days like today. Stories like this plus hundreds of nitpicking-nerds have created one-hell of QA department for (BETA!!) Google web apps.
Even if they don't tell you personally, I'm sure Google really appreciates all of your flames. Every "Not ready for prime-time yet" comment on this site should read: "I love your app, here's a list of what's broke, hope this helps".
I get the impression the google spreadsheet is implemnted in Ajax-type technologies? I don't get it; surely Java is ideally suited to implementing an online spreadsheet. All these years later, I'm still waiting for a decent online office suite, and for the life of me I can't figure out why nobody has really delivered. (Hello, Sun, are you there?) I'll admit I've been out of web development for several years, but AJAX strikes me as a mess of weak tools like javascript. Is it really the best choice for serious application development?
I'm not sure this strays from Google's business model. It makes their job easier; they want to organize the world's information. Their products make sense under this, if they can help you create the information they can more easily organize it. They don't have to deal with Microsoft formats or lotus apple format if you use Google format it's easy for Google to organize what you wrote. If they store it it's easier for them to find it and organize it. Also I strongly believe Google is a social project. They want to see how information is used and spread. Their invite a friend system seems usable for tracking how and where invitations spread. How did the first 500 users get gmail? Who did they pass it to? This is a way to refine and redefine the internet landscape. If they can predict who the power groups are they can use them to pass on viral information. Google can create something then watch it spread across the internet in a predicted pattern. That information would be valuable to anyone. They need to create the ability to create information to organize. Then they want to predict information and connections.
Can it open or save Excel spreadsheets?
The most important feature of any office app is its ability to use the vast amount of existing data, mostly stored in Microsoft format. That's Microsoft's second most powerful self-perpetuating monopoly abuse, after pure momentum.
Google has unprecedented access to computer power, smart people and example files, without the baggage of backwards compatibility to any of its own proprietary formats. Their most powerful feature would be freely interconverting all the office docs (including Excel) stored around the Net to other formats, including open formats. Slap just about any GUI that puts PEMDAS algebra in cell grids on that engine, and they've got a winner.
--
make install -not war
I always use unlisted, undocumented functions...
...as soon as I can find out about them.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
it'll be time to start going short on MSFT
their stock is already worth 20% less than last month!
so its a bit late unless you think its going to go down another 30%
better to invest in companies with more growth potential and future than MSFT
Charts are for people who cannot read a spreadsheet.
You are all a bunch of idots.
You know when you're in Excel and you decide to highlight more cells than fit on the screen? So you click and drag hoping to let the drag scroll you down to where you need to be? It's crawling along on cell at a time until...
you reach the end of the data and you fly down an additional 15,000 cells in 1/1000 of a second.
I hate Excel.
I travel a lot. Not only do I commute from home, school, and work, but I also take trips both personal and business-related. Meebo has already obviated the need for me to install Gaim or any other IM software on any of my systems. The computer terminals at work are highly regulated so I cannot install software or use USB keys. But because of Meebo, I have that functionality and I don't miss Gaim, AIM Triton, Yahoo Messenger, or MSN Messenger. Gmail has already taken over my e-mail and backup functions. (I use Thunderbird at home to pull mails off for archiving; I prefer the Gmail interface.) I already have been using Gmail to compose documents that I then save as a draft. The future may include Writely and Google Spreadsheets. I do not need a feature-rich client, but rather an available, dependable program that will allow me to transplant myself across different terminals without losing data or having to spend any time setting myself up.
Are we going back to the thin-client? Perhaps. Being able to work anywhere there is an Internet-connected computer regardless of the native software suite installed (other than a compatible Internet browser) is a very powerful ability indeed for someone who travels a lot.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
...but virtually impossible to run under the bandwidth that I use. I applaud google for doing this, but we need bandwidth! What's the solution? Google starting to use some of that dark fibre they have to force local ISPs to actually have competition.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Having just gone through a company forced seminar on data security and what not to allow outside the wall of the building, the missing link in the release of this tool is security. Many of the users of Excel are corporate employees or business owners. As one of the corporate un-washed mass I tried out googlesheets using made up data, then an existing spreadsheet. Only after I opened the file did I remember to ask the question, where is this data going? When tried a save I noticed that it was not saving to my local disc as default, but to a remote server.
In my test case I did not use a file that had sensitive data, but I did start to ponder the question of how secure is the data I save. if governments can troll for data then what protects any data I store outside my business laptop or desktop? While the spreadsheet is an amazing tool for personal use, it would take but one leak, one crack which leaks even seemingly innocent company data to kill this as a viable web tool. Were Google to offer strong encryption as default then I would feel better about using this web tool (or any other) to share and access data on field trips, or when working with teams across the country. Till then, as per our company policy I will continue to utilize client based office tools, email sensitive files with encryption, or use sneaker mail.
As to Google's effort I say kudos. Of course it does not have all functionality out of the box, but it is better then the other web based, server-side excel like application out there.....Oh that's right, there was none. A great tool that will only get better, and when they can secure the data to the level that companies will trust, they *will* get the strong attention of Microsoft who has fattened on the Corporate largesse resulting from over-charging MS Office. In fact, if Google would sell or charge a corporation to run googlesheets from inside a corporate WAN/LAN at a competitive price, if Google provided 90% of the functionality that current excel users in corporate world use, if upgrades occurred in one spot not across countless workstations, and they did this at a cost the was drastically less then a Corporate License from MS for office....game over.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
Another great online spreadsheet service is Numsum. They are located at http://numsum.com/
I haven't tried out google's spreadsheets yet, but I can tell you why online spreadsheets are the way to go...they allow people to share mathematical ideas and calculations easily.
For example, I created a spreadsheet that compares various hourly rates for contract workers. http://numsum.com/spreadsheet/show/20511 -- its not perfect, but it allows anyone, including someone without any technical knowledge, access to quick and easy information. There are Ebay spreadsheets, Business Spreadsheets, etc, available free of charge. Imagine how powerful that can be!
Google is doing what they are destined to do. Think about it for a minute.
With an online Spreadsheet, Word Processor (writely), E-Mail, and Web Page Editor on top of supporting a Web Browser that runs on just about all of the most popular platforms (Firefox Of Course) Most home users will no longer need to have Office installed, or even Windows at that.
I know many people who are happy using Wordpad to do word processing, and just use Excel for simple things like their check book, lists of stuff, and such. Well... Writely and Google Spreadsheet fit the bill, Gmail can effectively be a replacement for Outlook to MOST USERS (not all) Gmail for domains, no more need for Exchange server, Google hosts it... Google Pages... replace Frontpage and IIS at the same time.
Now that this all comes together think about this. Got a computer with Firefox, Mozilla, or a recent release of Netscape? If you don't... you can for FREE. Now think about this. Dell starts shipping Google software preinstalled on their machines...(yeah, you read it here) They already have a portal with Google. How hard would it be to sell their entry-level systems with links to these applications as their Office suite? Piece of cake! They have just replaced MS Works, or that Word Perfect Demo that came with my machine at work... for free, through an alliance they have already made.
How much of a jump is it to offer a Linux box with the same thing... no problem at all..it all works.
That is how Google can make Microsoft Irrelevant, and Microsoft knows this, so they see Google as their biggest threat.
Just another conspiracy, or are the facts too irrefutable to ignore?
My 2 cents..
Make America grate again!
There are some fairly basic things Google Spreadsheets can't do. For example, you cannot add decorative formatting to cells, which means that creating a "schedule" kind of document in Google Spreadsheets is impossible. It also tends to mangle Excel spreadsheets you send up to it.
I would never put real financial information on it. But for simple figuring, keeping track of the expenses you might incur on a trip, etc. etc. it's pretty neat. I won't abandon OpenOffice.Org anytime soon, but it's nice to have this kind of mathematical "scratch pad" available at any computer with FireFox or SeaMonkey.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
"The only way I can see MS hurting google is if they make IE point to MSN like Firefox does with Google on the top right search box."
Most ppl I know have google set to their homepage anyway. Want a new search? Open a new window. Type it in. Press return. I have no idea what search engine my "browser default" is set to, it certainly doesn't matter. The only time I've ever seen someone use an in-browser-toolbar search is when it has 'google' right next to it (ie, a browser plugin).
But then, that's hardly a wide sample.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
So have I, it works great for working out taxes and such!!
Hmm, my bank account seems to be missing some money....what the ?@#$!
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.
I have a decent play with it. It's ok, and there are quite a few bugs and annoyances. Some can be fixed, some can't.
1. Lots of beta gui issues - all fixable
2. Slow
3. Import works well
4. No named ranges - fixable
5. Sharing isn't all it is cracked up to be. I can't see a way of sharing the sheet with the public.
6. API to the sheet. For example, create a little compound interest calculator. How do you embed that in a web page? Would be great and I suspect they can do it.
7. Lack of VBA. Major issue. The great thing about Excel is just what you can make it do. Even just writting your own functions makes a big difference. I doubt they can fix this.
8. Integration. It is all stand alone. This is where it really fails. Almost all non trivial spreadsheets involve consolidating and publishing data. They won't be able to solve this.
Nick
Think of it... all of the Google Spreadsheet files are stored on THEIR servers. When you open up your files, just like with GMail, the content will be searched for keywords and relevant AdWords will be displayed on the page. It's not that way now, but it's coming.
And who is to say that Google won't index those files to create a marketing profile of you?
The more of your data Google owns, the more sophisticated their profile of you becomes.
What worries me a bit in all these wonderful things coming out of Google is that there is never any way for users to pay Google for them.
Why would I want to pay, if I can get it for free? Because money changing hands is a very good way for consumers to signal their interest to producers. As long as we simply can't pay Google for things like Gmail, Earth, Picasa, etc. we have very little influence over whether Google continues with these products and over which products Google focuses their efforts on. You could argue that the advertising is a way; but I use Gmail all the time, but I've never clicked on an ad in Gmail. So as far as Google is concerned, maybe this means I don't like Gmail.
I mean, the whole situation calls into question whether these things can even be considered products. In fact, Google's primary product is actually you and me and the customer is advertisers. And, as TV has shown us, this model where the "products" are incidental produces very mixed results for the users.
And VBA is more difficult then it needs to be for most users, who just want to piece together simple macros and formula's. Replicating this functionality will be trivial. Only major power users actually build excel based apps using VBA...
If only those Meebo guys (and girls) could hack up a Skype back-end as well...
http://blog.grcm.net/
Answer: you write a "swiss army knife" of a program, and then magically remove the 80% that's not needed on a per-user basis (yeah, I don't know how to actually accomplish that, either).
Or you could write a whole bunch of little tools that only do one thing, and do it well, and then string them together using some kind of scripting. But then you get UNIX, and we all know how well that works out among the barely-computer-literate masses. Something like Apple's Automator could be a step in the right direction, though...
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
1. Charts are for visualizing data. When you have a lot of it, it's much easier to find trends and do comparisons than trying to directly download all the data to your brain.
2. What's an idot?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
If google had the chance to make the kind of impact on the world and on history that the Wright Brothers did, I'm pretty sure they would trade that kind of impact for the chance for their search business to be successful 105 years later.
That would be like saying, "Man. If scientists Exxon were to invent cold fusion that would TOTALLY UNDERMINE THEIR GAS BUSINESS because someone else might steal the design and make more money off of it!"
>in a couple of ears you have an office suite
And I'm finding it quite painful. Maybe I shouldn't have listened when that guy on the OpenOffice support forum said "Go stick it in your ear!".
...where it looks through hundreds of my spreadsheets looking for types (i.e. all software) of items and then returns me the entire line from the spread sheets with universal column key. Correlated into its own spread sheet. Now make this spread sheet update whenever new items of the same type are added to any other spreadsheets. That's the search features I want included in my Google spread sheet.
Google is just peeing on Microsoft's fire-hydrant.
As you know, this comment is text only, and with text communication, it just might sound more nastier than I intend. I mean this with a friendly voice only. It's still in Beta, they could easily add features.
I gave it go and tried to upload a spreadsheet that we tend to email around the office - so there are old outdated copies everywhere! It wasn't particularly a complicated spreadsheet but Google failed to upload it.
Well, it didn't fail to upload it as much as the little status circle continued to spin throughout the night as I just let it run.
The next day I closed out the browser and gave up on this product. Please - do more testing before you release it.
If that were true, then why hasn't OpenOffice.org been an excel killer? It's well past the 2% mark.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
ThinkFree.com has a free online office suite (built with applets) that writes to the native MS file types fairly well. It's a bit slow to load (being an applet) but you get a free 1GB account which isn't indexed by Google. It's worth checking out for anyone interested in online storage of their docs. Nope, don't work for them. :)
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Google's track record to date indicates that if a feature isn't in the 'beta launch' - it will be a long time, if ever, before the feature is actually incorporated. Most likely because (it seems to me), that Google's applications are written to the preferences of the head developer. Very little work on useability, interfaces, and human factors seem to be done beforehand - if ever.
But small, minimal spreadsheet programs and word processors (with spell check) have been around for years. There are many of them for all platforms. What makes the Google version so special? Oh yeah, it is "AJAX," I forgot. Anything AJAX has to be cool, right?
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
My take is that Google doesn't do much planning at all. They just take whatever looks shiniest on their plate and offer it to the public. Sometimes they even bother to fix the bugs, interface problems, and user issues - when they get around to remembering to do so.
Because it isn't AJAX, silly. Everyone knows that AJAX web applcations, no matter how primitive and slow, will eventually bring Microsoft to its knees. Nobody actually USES teh features of MS Office. Nobody needs proper OS integration. Sandboxing your productivity applications in a browser is just fine. Nobody ever needs to work offline. Office users are just deluded. They'll see the Google light eventually....
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
The Meebo guys just wrote the AJAX front-end (which is rather nice). The back-end is libgaim, which still lacks support for known voice/video protocols. I believe the Skype protocol is closed and unknown. Has some work been done on cracking it?
Centralization breaks the internet.
Is here
Open in, fork it, and follow both memes.
Kidding!
Hmm, shared spreadsheets in a small business... ever heard of a file server? Need something a little more dynamic and multiuser? Try a simple Access database.
Sorry, I see an extremely limited market for a crippled online spreadsheet app. Minimal spreadsheet programs have been around forever. It is nothing new. If people really couldn't afford office, they could download one of those minimal ones. But the fact is that most businesses already have Office installed. Why wouldn't they just fire that up and do a spreadsheet? In my experience, users don't really care if a program is bloated. They just use whatever they've been trained to use.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
According to this post, MSDOS did not use a command line:
... command-line interfaces.
Bill Gates got where his is by targeting "the average user", who didn't care about
I tested it and it works good. I couldn't load a 'big' excel or csv file (1.5 Mb) but I wrote a bug report with the online tool. I think that this kind of online application had a lot of potential. Coming soon, many applications will be ported online thanks to AJAX and the webservices (.net, RoR, JSP/JSF, SOAP,..).
in case it hasn't been mentioned yet, this release does not support Safari
Google probably keeps all the data created via its services in a form similar to the Semantic Web -- just a proprietary version of it.
I believe Google stores most of its data in BigTable, their homegrown database system. BigTable seems to be built on the philosophy of the Semantic Web.
However, each service (Maps, Reader, Base, etc.) runs its own BigTable cluster, so it might be a little difficult to share information between services.
2. What's an idot?
It is Apple's new full stop. They are releasing an all new font for use on Macs. Also expected are the iAsterisk, the iHash and the iHat. The fanboys are expected to be iEcstatic and write lots of iReviews praising the new font for its clarity and beauty.
meh
Selling tinfoil hats. After reading these comments there seems to be a market for them.
Really, this is a playground copy of the application. If it generates interest it will be developed. If it does not generate interest the devloper(s) will do something else on Fridays.
1. Good Point. 2. Good catch... ya know your only the second person to catch that in like 6 months... or at least the second to say anything.
You are all a bunch of idots.
I think that part of the difference is the "name brand." Once a person knows and likes Google, they might be more willing to try out a new alternative spreadsheet program. I've mentioned Google Spreadsheets to a few friends in passing over the past few days, and the response is usually something along the lines of, "Oh, Google's making a spreadsheet program? That's cool, I'll have to check it out." OTOH, I've tried to convince several people to switch to OpenOffice, and they tend to go, "what the heck is that? I've never heard of it. I'll stick with Microsoft."
Admittedly, this app needs a LOT of work before it's ready for the primetime (I have been using it to share a few spreadsheets, but given the overall state of Google Spreadsheets at the moment, it'll be a while before I'd choose it over OpenOffice and MSOffice for almost all of my spreadsheets), but it's a pretty cool idea, and if they fix the major glitches/user interface problems/etc., it could be a really useful app in a year or so.
My friend is currently organising 3 skiing trips this session with about 30 people in total attending. Last session he emailed spreadsheets back and forth - this session its all google - very cool
I'm currently planning my wedding - my girlfriend and I are using Google spreadsheets so we both can update details as we book/arrange
This will be MASSIVE!!
if Google provided 90% of the functionality that current excel users in corporate world use, if upgrades occurred in one spot not across countless workstations, and they did this at a cost the was drastically less then a Corporate License from MS for office....game over.
90% of Excel's functionality out of a web app? You are kidding right? What the hell is it with Slashdot? Have you people ever even tried to make a web app before? Have you never even used some of hte more advanced features of Excel? Do you even realize WHY Office is so bloated? Because it does a lot of shit! You're never going to get anywhere near Office with HTML, CSS, and Javascript sandboxed in a browser. You people are so fucking deluded.
God damn it. Every time some shitty AJAX driven appliction comes out, you all cream your pants. And if it is done by Google, you cream yourself twice and beg for more.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
I have tried google spreadsheets and it can't open any of the office 2000 excel files that I have at work and display them properly.
It get height and width all wrong, plus inserted pictures (logotypes) are removed. The pages I write are a bit smaller then A4 paper, just so it's easier when to print it. With google spreadsheets I get 2-3 pages when I print, in excel I get 1.
Test your documents like I did, before you use it fully. It's still a beta, it will hopefully get a lot better then it is now.
Instead of giving you the actual HTML of your spreadsheet, it displays a duplicate of your spreadsheet in a seperate window/tab. This duplicate cannot be edited. The URL for this thing is the most long-ass URL I've ever seen and doesn't give any indication that it's an HTML file. Geesh, I was hoping to be able to use this to get spreadsheet clippings into my website.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It's the same effect as starting out your post by saying "I know I'm going to get modded down for this, but...". Every single time it ends up a +5 post. Mods will always try to do the opposite of whatever mod advice/prediction is in a post.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
Yes, you're absolutely right. Those libgaim guys deserve most of the credit- but Meebo is doing jolly well and now expanding their offices. Again.
The Skype for Linux is a binary - but there must be a way of wrapping it... or perhaps using the Windows binary through Wine.
I'd hate to guess how much RAM that would cost though...
Some people have analysed it rather well but there is still a long way to go.
http://blog.grcm.net/
My take is that Google doesn't do much planning at all. They just take whatever looks shiniest on their plate and offer it to the public. Sometimes they even bother to fix the bugs, interface problems, and user issues - when they get around to remembering to do so.
I think it's just that these products are irrelevant to Google's core model which is selling text advertising on web searches. I see a great deal of planning in that area. Everything else is just a hobby that the public gets to participate in.I only see download as .xls and .csv. I expect them to support ODF. sigh...