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Google To Add Presentations
A number of readers (some from the audience at Web 2.0 Expo) wrote to let us know that Google is adding presentations to their Docs and Spreadsheets package. With the announcement the company revealed that they have purchased Tonic Systems to help with the new presentation software. It's expected to be ready by summer. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt was asked if Docs and Spreadsheets will compete with MS Office, and he said, "We don't think so. It doesn't have all the functionality, nor is it intended to have the functionality of products like Microsoft Office."
"We don't think it'll compete with Office - we just want the customer base that uses it"
I'd like to see it use the s5 format - then it could be saved as html+css.
Take a look at the introductory presentation - it's pretty neat especially considering it's all standard html+css+js.
Got it in one. Add this to the commercial domain packaging Google is offering and it looks like the platform for a lot of small businesses. $50/user/year and you can throw away all your departmental Microsoft servers. If you get controlled logins, Gmail, Writely, spreadsheet and presentation as well as a portal with your own domain name, why bother with Microsoft? Oh and you can throw away all the operations support structure and those dusty MCSE's as well. That's gotta save you more than $50/user/year, and you get a reliable platform too. I mean, it isn't like Google doesn't have a bit of redundancy here & there.
I'm an old and dusty MCSE/network engineer too and I don't see why a small business needs that kind of infrastructure or expertise any more than you should have a television engineer in your home to switch channels for you.
I was once a Microsoft shill until I discovered my inner Fear of Flying Chairs...
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
WTF!? Computers haven't lagged behind keystrokes in like 15 years (although browser based apps chock full of Javascript aim to change that). What are you running, a Mac Classic or something?
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
I know Google has the public relations dollars, but one would think on Slashdot we'd be discussing
the many (IMHO far better) online office suites. I have a hard time looking at Google Docs
and thinking anyone would find it compares to say "Ajax13" ( http://www.ajax13.com/ ) or other
independent offerings.
Likewise, Google's webtop pales in comparison to far slicker applications like DesktopTwo
( http://www.desktoptwo.com/ ). -- which by the way uses a web based java version of OpenOffice
which is also slicker than any of Google's office apps.
I'm all for "free" and "freely distributed" web applications replacing the MS Office tax that
we're all forced to pay, but I'm also for the best man winning. And IMHO, Google's not exactly
deserving of the top spot here.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
The question is, once large organizations figure out (if they are actually interested in saving money let's say) that this one percent phenomena exists, how valuable will it be for them to buy everyone in the organization a $200+ piece of software "just in case" they need it?
The more appropriate response will be for Office to be looked upon in the same way that a compiler is, something that just a few people, specialists, need to have a copy of, while everyone else can make use of much simpler web-based alternatives.
As people start to use "Google Office" at home for its ease of sharing documents, etc, the same argument that made Office a standard will start to apply to Google Apps: "Hey, all these people right out of school already know Google Apps, let's just standardized on that so we don't have to teach them Office".
I don't think I've run MS Office in three years, and my use of Open Office is starting to fall off quite a bit as I just load things people send me into Google Docs from the get-go. I'm also noticing that the only thing I'm storing on my PCs are music files and photos, with more and more photos being stored online as well. This is great!