Writely.com Beta - Google's Answer to Word

bahree writes "Google has launched their beta version of Writely.com. Writely is their word processor and answer to Microsoft Word. In addition to the usual editing features it includes many collaboration features, as well as the ability to save documents as PDFs and RSS feeds."

Comments

Just what the world needs....

[fm6]

... another word processor!

Google needs to get a life!

Re:Price is the least of their differences....

[inKubus]

Uh, but have you even TRIED Writely? NOTEPAD.EXE has more features than this app... Maybe it'd be fine for simple stuff like letters, etc. But if you're doing serious work like desktop publishing, mail merges, TABLES, etc. it falls very very very short. Writely doesn't have definable style sheets. It looks like it's basically a rich-text editor.

I'm not saying it's not a good idea; I'd love to have a web-based office suite to stick on a server somewhere and have it accesable anywhere. But they have a LOOOOOOONG way to go. MS Word is the product of 30 years of development. I remember when it smashed through the established WordPerfect in about 6 months, then crushed openoffice by opening up it's standards and moving to an XML file format (which is still a little closed, but not too bad).

I could see Writely becoming something good for the home user, but for the small to mid business category, Word is the king. Before I can switch, they need at least the following: Tables, mail merge and other database support, envelopes and labels, "macros", tranlation features and support for other languages/character sets, basic formatting like setting tabs, align, paragraph formatting, font formatting like leading and kerning, online clipart built-in, and tools to generate advanced objects like org-charts, graphs, etc.

It'll get there, but by that time, Word will already be online and working, because M$FT had this idea 10 years ago...
I hate to say it. BUT, if they play this smart, Google can integrate this into it's other offerings. MySpace type forums utilizing the writely standards, an online auction/store site utilizing the writely standards, etc etc. It's not really about the editor but about the DOCUMENTS and what you can do with them. If I can write a letter one day, then move it to the web in one step, then turn it into an online store entry without retyping, that would be money.