Google Docs to support Powerpoint

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.""

Comments

What about opera users?

[FST]

From source:

var MSG_UNSUPPORTED_BROWSER="Unsupported Browser Presently doesn't support Opera and will not function properly. Would you like to continue anyway?";

Looks like Google is leaving us Opera users out. How long do you think we will need to wait before they begin supporting it?

Re:What about opera users?

[Anne_Nonymous]

>> 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.

Re:What about opera users?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a bad guess. One of the latest areas where Embedded Opera is actually getting used is on the Nintendo Wii and DS. It's mostly been used for accessing Flash games like those at Wiicade, but some Javascript applications that take advantage of the Wiimote have already started showing up.

It's an odd thought, but some people seem to like being able to access the Internet on their TV while sitting on the couch. It seems to be a convenience thing.

That being said, if Google supported Opera, they could advertise the Wii as a portable viewer for their Powerpoint-ish presentations. No need for a laptop TV card, just hook up the Wii and go. Hmm. My boss with a Wii. Scary thought.

Re:What about opera users?

[jorgevillalobos]

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.

No!!

[CptPicard]

I thought Google was supposed to "do no evil"... why inflict more presentations on mankind? Remember, Powerpoint corrupts absolutely...

Predictable postings

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

A slew of postings are expected where /.tters would avow that they will never store their personal data files in google's server and predict that corporations cant afford to send their data to such third party services and so this is unlikely to unseat Microsoft.

Again many would point out that once Google irons out the kinks using these millions of users as beta testers using spotty and intermittent internet connections to do document creation, they can sell out a Office-in-a-box appliance to corporations. Completely managed by IT, with better intranet speeds these machines can chew big chunks of market out of MS.

Meanwhile, unmindful of all the implications of security, invasion of privacy and other such trivial concerns, millions of users will use whatever works for them and leave the future to evolve at its own speed and pace.

Re:Predictable postings

[kevin_conaway]

Don't forget about the asshole who thinks he knows everything and just has to tell everyone so.

Re:Powerpoint makes you dumb

[RipTides9x]

I am having quite a bit of trouble grasping what you are trying to say.
How about a putting together a little presentation for the rest of us, which shouldn't take up too much of your weekend time, say for Monday morning, 9AM?

visio would be VERY useful

[WindBourne]

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.

Re:Damn..!

[UtucXul]

There was an alternative all along: S5. It stores presentations in XHTML+CSS and uses Javascript to advance to the next slide. It's friendly even for browsers that don't support Javascript or CSS---it falls back to plain text rather nicely.

I was really excited when I first learned out S5. I did my thesis proposal using it. But I have to say that after that experience, it really wasn't worth it for me. I had to use latex2html for equations which was fine. But to get figures in it to look properly required enough tweaking that the result works poorly on computers with a different screen resolution than I started with. Maybe I could have handled the CSS more carefully and got something more portable, but that would have been even more of a pain than what I did. And I had a directory full of files. Not to mention how poorly embedding animations works.

Now I use LaTeX Beamer and could not be happier. Maybe S5 would be great for talks that have few or no figures or equations and just bullet points, but that is not enough to help me. With Beamer I get a single pdf with everything and it looks the same regardless of what computer/OS I show it on. All done using nothing more than the free software I normally use.

It's too bad since I really think S5 is a cool idea.

MS Project would be better

[uwbbjai]

Having an online project management tool would be way more useful than being able to do presentations or editing spreadsheets online.

If you work for any company, chances are Word, Excel, Powerpoint would be loaded onto your machine as standard installation. But does everyone get Project as well? unlikely unless you're management.

With Google Project, at least anyone interested can look at those .mpp files and see how much they've been allocated and their deadlines, be it devs, QA, tech writers...

The AdSense Pairings Could Be Hilarious

[George Johnston]

User Dick Harding asks, "Why do all my presentations have Viagra ads on them?"