Investigating Online Office Suites

jcatcw writes "Computerworld reviewed four online office suites — Ajax13, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, ThinkFree Online and Zoho Office Suite. None has all the applications and features of Microsoft Office, but if you're looking for the core office applications in an access-anywhere format, at least two were surprisingly sophisticated. The article weighs the ability to save files to a centralized server quite heavily in its ranking. The winner is ThinkFree Office because it provides the most sophisticated features and has the best Microsoft Office compatibility. Zoho's suite is the second choice."

Comments

Google Docs and Spreadsheets

[klenwell]

I've been satisfied with Google D&S, mostly because it's now well integrated (bundled?) with my Gmail account. Then I tried to print a hard copy of a Google Doc for the first time yesterday. Now I'm less impressed. (Google's definition of a 'pt' and Word's are way off.)

Still, the sharing feature is cool. But the Gmail integration is the main reason I'm loathe to try any alternatives.

Explain to me please....

[hasbeard]

I can see where these services would be useful for collaborative projects involving people in far flung locations. But for regular business use how many companies want to store their data on someone else's server?

Re:Unwise to use them for confidential data

[sporkme]

Google: Confidential "not for public release" - optionally add filetype:pdf, doc, etc.

I completely agree with your statement. Swapping convenience for security is the name of the game. I used Writely.com before it became Google D&S. I found it mainly useful to leave lasting notes-to-self from work, and when I needed to whip up something with a little more shine than wordpad. For anything professional, OOO + [distribution system of choice] is the way to go.

Re:I'm a lazy idiot

[stormeru]

OpenOffice is a standalone application, the office suites presented in the review are web applications.

simple explanation:
- to use OpenOffice you have to install it on every computer where you need it. (if you don't have the installer specific for the platform, think about the time it takes to download it)
- to use these online office suites you need only a web browser (almost every OS distribution comes with one included, in a short amount of time you can finish writing the document without downloading anything)

the online office suites have built-in capabilities of saving your files remote (but pay attention to the licence! some of them imply that everything you write belongs to the company offering the online office suite).

remember: you got the power to choose the tool that satisfies best your needs.

The Java stuff causes problems

[dilute]

I just tried it. The client-side Java wanted to mess with all the security stuff in place in the corporate environment. It just wasn't going to fly. Maybe it will load at home. Anyway, gonna stick with Google docs & spreadsheets. As someone above said, a big feature is its integration with gmail.

Anyone who wants cheap I.T.

[Colin Smith]

Lets see... Desktop PCs, servers, Office Suite, Accounts package, RDBMS, web servers, application server, security software, Windows administrator, server administrator, database administrator... It all adds up.

Now imagine Google does it all for you, all you need is a client application and a network connection. They guarantee performance, security and that your data is yours when you want it. All for $20 per month per seat.

COMING SOON: Google Office Appliance

[Bastardchyld]

disclaimer - this is entirely speculation

You are very correct, however here is the beauty of this whole scenario, after the kinks are ironed out with all of this, then I anticipate that they will release an appliance with the Web/App and storage included (or SAN attachable), allowing for corporations to have their own Office Solution. The real bonus from this comes from the ability to archive and search all from the web/app. Imagine being to be able to search all of the companies documents (assuming your position allows) to find that essential piece of data. This gives you all of the bonuses with minimal pitfalls.

Except of course the single point of failure.

Remember Google and these other companies have to be able to make money some way. Ad supported is fine, but eventually they need to be able to expand.

It could be a LOT better.

[Kadin2048]

The ability to integrate Gmail and D&S could be a big advantage, but frankly I've been a bit disappointed that they haven't leveraged it more obviously.

Case in point: a few days ago someone emailed me a DOC file. Why isn't there an option to open it in D&S? It'll view it as HTML, or Download it, but what I'd really like would be one-click to turn it into an editable, publishable document. As it was, I had to download it, then re-upload it to D&S in order to produce an editable version. Not a huge problem, but if I had been on a computer where I wasn't allowed to save documents, it would have been. It's just stupid to make me pull a document down to my local machine from one Google server, only to upload it back to another Google server a minute later.

Also, when you do have a document open in D&S, why isn't there an option to email a copy to someone? Okay, I know I can invite them to edit it online, and I could always publish it and send them an invite, but why not something where I can send them a DOC version as an email attachment? That's a lot easier for many people to deal with. And while we're at it, how about some form of change tracking that would let me email a copy to someone, let them edit it offline, and then a way to re-import it to D&S (via the one-click, above) so that it would be change-tracked, as if they had logged-in to edit it? Expecting everyone to have a Google ID to edit documents is ridiculous. I can't convince everyone in my family to get Google IDs, much less everyone I'd like to share documents with, everywhere.

I think it's a great service, and a great start. But it has a long way to go, even within becoming part of Google's "suite" of services.

Re:Doesn't Matter

[dgatwood]

I suddenly have the urge to write a JavaScript port of vi. Something like this:

• Take over the keyboard. You can read key up/down events in JS, so this shouldn't be too hard.
• Each line is a separate XML element.
• Within each line, it maintains two copies: the raw data (as an attribute) and the display version.
• The display version highlights a single character by wrapping it in a CSS tag that makes it inverted.
• Arrow keys change which character is highlighted and on which line.
• Floating div that hovers at the bottom of the window to provide the status line.

From there, the rest of the implementation should be relatively straightforward. :-)

real-time versioning

[wordsthatendinq]

I've only used Google Docs (which I still prefer to call Writely because it has fewer syllables) though I'm sure the others are similar.

The one feature that I find novel is the way it does revisions, especially for multi-author documents. The Writely revisions interface is looking more and more like MS Word's "track changes" but with the additional benefits that (a) many people can edit at the same time, and (b) you can see all revisions ever made, whereas in Word, once an author overwrites his own revisions you can't see the old version anymore.

What's worked pretty well with a lot of my colleagues these days is to do everything on Writely until the text is complete, then one person downloads it and does the formatting in Word. (Then submit the paper and get rejected, but that happens with or without Writely.)

That said, I still think LaTeX looks the best but I don't know as many people who use it.

Heavy as a schoolbus

[gerf]

Comparing compatibility to MS Office is the same as articles claiming something was "as large as a VW car," "as heavy as two schoolbuses," or "as long as two and a half football fields." It's not a freaking standard, and we shouldn't have to abide by it.

Unfortunately, though, we do. :/

Good for on-the-go people

[RealGrouchy]

At any given time, I could be at home, at one of three offices, or at a random public terminal. (My laptop's broken screen means it's stuck at home :( )

If I need to update one of my tracking spreadsheets, I don't need to worry about whether the computer has a USB outlet (and remember to take it out!), which SD card my file is on, which version of the file is most recent, or whether that computer has the right software to read my file. (Not to mention that office suites tend to take a while to load up)

Every computer that I use has an internet connection and firefox, and I can quickly and reliably log on to Google Spreadsheets to update my spreadsheets.

Now that Google spreadsheets also has a "history" function, I also don't have to worry about constantly saving local backups, either (although my spreadsheets tend to be too big for it to be of much use).

- RG>