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Google Docs to support Powerpoint

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the more-executive-time-wasters dept.

KindredHyperion writes "Garett Rogers at ZDNet has an article on the prospect of a Powerpoint-esque addition to Google Docs and Spreadsheets. From the article: "If you dig around the language files in Google Docs, you will find what appears to be traces of a new service preparing for launch soon. Meet Google Presently — an online presentation creator that will likely read and write the most common formats like Microsoft PowerPoint and Open Office Impress.""

3 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What about opera users? by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >> How long do you think we will need to wait before they begin supporting it?

    W.A.G. of the day: The more mobile devices browse, the more mainstream Opera will become.

  2. visio would be VERY useful by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Insightful

    visio has no decent OSS version and none that will read its format. It would be useful if Google created even a web app of it and perhaps release a library for reading/writing the format.

    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  3. Re:What about opera users? by jorgevillalobos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Probably until it either gains majority market share or opens up it's source.

    That has nothing to do with it. If Google is excluding Opera users from one of their services, it's probably for one of the following reasons:

    • Opera hasn't implemented (or has bugs in) certain Javascript functions required by their service. This just means that Opera needs to expand (fix) its implementation.
    • There's some general policy in Google to support certain browsers and exclude all others to "play it safe". This is something that I've seen in a lot of corporate web software. The browser may very well support the app but there's a compatibility check the browser doesn't pass. The solution to this is changing the user-agent string, which I believe Opera can do easily.
    • Google is using non-standard features of IE and Firefox to implement their services. In this case your point about market share is correct since Google can't spend too much time to please a relatively small group of users.

    Being open source has absolutely nothing to do with this.