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Google To Add Presentations

Posted by kdawson on from the looking-office-like dept.

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."

46 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Won't work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    99% of the time most people use the "standard" features of MSOffice. GOffice will be fine with this. Unfortunately, for the 1%, everyone uses a different piece of advanced functionality and get annoyed that THEIR pet feature is missing. Good to have an alternative with intarwebbiness built in though I guess.

    1. Re:Won't work by cmacb · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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!

    2. Re:Won't work by fuego451 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah. Isn't "office" an emacs mode or something?

      I don't know. I run emacs just for the games.

    3. Re:Won't work by suv4x4 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You're making some huge mistakes. First, the cost of office software is nothing for a corporation, compared to its other expenses (taxes, salaries, hardware, office bills and so on and so on).

      Second, those Google Apps are suitable for some purposes, but for heavy or advanced usage, they're totally unfit. So far we're looking at a bunch of online toys trying to pretend they're Office. They will replace Office exactly as the "web OS" sites will replace Windows.

      Third, if a company is desperate to save from licensing costs, they can use OpenOffice. As much as OpenOffice lacks certain functionality, it's a desktop app, and ages ahead of Google's apps.

    4. Re:Won't work by Serpent+Mage · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You're making some huge mistakes. First, the cost of office software is nothing for a corporation, compared to its other expenses (taxes, salaries, hardware, office bills and so on and so on).

      Second, those Google Apps are suitable for some purposes, but for heavy or advanced usage, they're totally unfit. So far we're looking at a bunch of online toys trying to pretend they're Office. They will replace Office exactly as the "web OS" sites will replace Windows.


      1) for the larger companies this is correct. in fact they have a special budget just for this stuff and if they don't spend it they lose it. they are not saving anything at all in larger companies.

      2) for small and medium size business this will be a huge savings and *that* is the purpose of GOffice.

      Targetting corporations is pointless. They have to run all email and software inside their walls and they sometimes won't even allow you to use something like gmail while at work. Small and medium size businesses don't have that kind of infrastructure and bureaucracy yet and will benefit greatly from this type of online office suite.
    5. Re:Won't work by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You're making some huge mistakes. First, the cost of office software is nothing for a corporation, compared to its other expenses (taxes, salaries, hardware, office bills and so on and so on).

      I disagree. The cost of software for a company includes the cost of licensing, license management, maintenance, file transfer, the potential cost of license noncompliance, and support. Google docs mitigates more than just the flat license cost. These savings may not be considered significant and inefficient bureaucracies in large, american companies will probably resist the change for a long time, but that is not the same thing as the cost itself being nothing.

      Now consider smaller companies that don't have well established license management schemes. The cost becomes more significant. Now subtract from the per seat cost a Windows license, which is no longer needed because Google docs runs fine on Linux. Now consider foreign companies that spend a fraction of the cost on labor and who may or may not be complying with the law, but many of whom are being pressured to do so. Does Google docs support chinese?

      So far we're looking at a bunch of online toys trying to pretend they're Office.

      Actually, they serve a different purposes. I use a google doc spreadsheet to track a competition I'm participating in along with a few friends. They all use it as well because while we only need basic spreadsheet capabilities, we do need the ability to collaborate easily and with Google docs that is much, much, much easier than setting up some sort of a server with versioning that we can all access. Google docs is for casual, home use and for collaborative use. That is how it is different from MS Office, which I think everyone in the competition has access to, but which does not allow easy ad hoc collaboration from different people in different companies.

      Third, if a company is desperate to save from licensing costs, they can use OpenOffice. As much as OpenOffice lacks certain functionality, it's a desktop app, and ages ahead of Google's apps.

      I'm all for OpenOffice, although it sucks pretty badly on the mac right now. What you might be missing is that this is not an either/or proposition. Google docs supports ODF so you can write something in OpenOffice and upload it to Google docs, or collaborate on something in Google docs with a bunch of friends, then download it an modify it in OpenOffice. Google docs targets a different segment. It is easier to e-mail a link to a Google docs file to my mother and let her edit it, than it is to e-mail her an OpenOffice created ODF file and instruct her in how to open it, save, it and attach it to another e-mail to send it back to me, even assuming I've installed OpenOffice on her machine in the past (which would run like a dog on her ancient 500Mhz box).

  2. Quick! by twenex27 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Remove the chairs from the building!

  3. So... by Impeesa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They wanted to offer a new product, and bought a company to do so? Isn't that sort of a Microsoft thing?

    1. Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is a business thing.

    2. Re:So... by Sancho · · Score: 4, Informative

      Depends.

      If you want to start offering a product or service, and it's going to cost you more to develop that product/service than to buy a company which already offers it, the choice is obvious.

    3. Re:So... by geekoid · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Only if they buy them to remove them from competing.
      Otherwise it's a sound business move.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    4. Re:So... by Bongo+Bill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The reason Microsoft is so rich is because that strategy works. It should be no surprise that Google behaves similarly.

      --
      ...but is it art?
    5. Re:So... by bradkittenbrink · · Score: 4, Funny

      do what now?

    6. Re:So... by MadnessASAP · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No, Buying a company that is already in a market your going into is business. Then buying/suing every other company trying to get into or currently in the market is a Microsoft move.

      --
      I may agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to face the consequences of saying it.
    7. Re:So... by xoundmind · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Only if they buy them to remove them from competing. Otherwise it's a sound business move.

      Buying them to remove a competitor is a sound business move.

    8. Re:So... by quickgold192 · · Score: 2, Informative

      A lot of Google's products were previous companies: Google Docs: Writley Google Earth: Keyhole Picasa: Picasa Google Sketch up: Sketch Up I'm sure I've missed some but I'm sure you get it.

  4. Lazy employees by TodMinuit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    With the announcement the company revealed that they have purchased Tonic Systems to help with the new presentation software.

    What exactly do Google employees do all day? Count money, play pool, and ride Segways?

    Furthermore, if this cannot export to PDF or PowerPoint, it's pretty much useless. When giving presentations, Internet access is rarely provided or is flakey at best.

    --
    I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
    1. Re:Lazy employees by Matt+Perry · · Score: 4, Informative

      Furthermore, if this cannot export to PDF or PowerPoint, it's pretty much useless. When giving presentations, Internet access is rarely provided or is flakey at best.
      I'm sure it'll export to both. I've been using Google Docs and the word processor can export to HTML, RTF, MS Word, OpenOffice Writer, and PDF. The Google spreadsheet can export to CSV, HTML, OpenOffice Calc, PDF, plain text, and MS Excel.
      --
      Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
    2. Re:Lazy employees by HockeyPuck · · Score: 2

      PDF doesn't always cut it as one often uses animations.

    3. Re:Lazy employees by ampathee · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:Lazy employees by Petrushka · · Score: 2, Informative

      Furthermore, if this cannot export to PDF or PowerPoint, it's pretty much useless.

      Where does the information that it can't export to PDF or PowerPoint format come from? I can't find that in TFA. Google Documents and Spreadsheets can certainly export to MS Office, OpenDocument, PDF and other formats, so it would certainly surprise me if this couldn't too.

    5. Re:Lazy employees by brilinux · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But we do not yet have the technology to have computers electricute or shoot people who want to use animations in presentations, so the best that the programmers can do is disallow the presentations from being exported to filetypes that allow animations, hence pdf.

    6. Re:Lazy employees by Darkforge · · Score: 2, Informative

      PDF doesn't always cut it as one often uses animations.

      Sadly, and disturbingly, PDF files can do animations.

      --

      When I moderate, I only use "-1, Overrated". That way, I never get meta-moderated!

    7. Re:Lazy employees by garcia · · Score: 2, Interesting

      From what I understand from rumors heard before the departure of Dennis and Alex, formally of Google's Dodgeball, they are tied up in endless meetings and conference calls rather than having the opportunity to work on their project.

    8. Re:Lazy employees by dinther · · Score: 2, Informative

      Check their web-site...

      http://www.tonicsystems.com/ won't give you much but the web archive does:

      http://web.archive.org/web/20060820002948/http://w ww.tonicsystems.com/

      PDF seems one of the things they do.

    9. Re:Lazy employees by UtucXul · · Score: 2, Informative

      PDF doesn't always cut it as one often uses animations.
      I use animations in pdfs (made from LaTeX) for all my presentations. pdfanim is pretty damned reliable. Sadly the results don't quite work with xpdf at the moment, but Acrobat or Acrobat Reader have been available for every talk I've given.
    10. Re:Lazy employees by glwtta · · Score: 3, Informative

      Furthermore, if this cannot export to PDF or PowerPoint, it's pretty much useless.

      Yeah, and if it doesn't let you type the letter "e", that will be bad too. Also, it shouldn't give you cancer - I think it would be bad if it gave you cancer.

      --
      sic transit gloria mundi
  5. Re:Do you want it to replace MS Office? by grantek · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "We don't think it'll compete with Office - we just want the customer base that uses it"

  6. I don't get it by geek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    First Apple says they don't want their office app to compete with MSOffice, now Google says they don't want to compete with MSOffice. When will someone man up and compete? OpenOffice is nice but it has a HUGE number of flaws still. We NEED competition here.

    1. Re:I don't get it by archen · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You mean like Corel Office, or the dozens of other Office Suite carcases left by the roadside in application history? MS has a stranglehold on the entire market right now. As soon as someone brings up Open Office everyone bitches about quirks with importing MS formats - comparisons on its own merits are usually secondary. The reality is that with Microsoft's position, everyone tries to carve out a nitch as best they can and hope that MS doesn't bundle something that further expands its reach.

  7. Re:Export by SheeEttin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Interestingly, I recently noticed that my school has installed OpenOffice(.org) on all the computers--but the shortcuts only appear on teachers' desktops.

    At least I don't have to convert to MS' .doc format any more. Just tell them to open it in this "OpenOffice.org thing".

  8. Re:Is it Flash or lots of JavaScript? by TodMinuit · · Score: 3, Informative
    From TonicSystems.com:

    Q. Who is Tonic Systems? What are their products?
    A: Tonic Systems is a San Francisco-based company that provides Java presentation automation products and solutions for document management - Tonic Systems Builder, Tonic Systems Filter, Tonic Systems Transformer, Tonic Systems Viewer, and JarJar Links. Features of their products included text extraction for indexing documents, presentation creation capabilities and document conversion tools.
    --
    I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
  9. Re:Do you want it to replace MS Office? by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 3, Interesting
    "We don't think it'll compete with Office - we just want the customer base that uses it"

    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
  10. Tonic makes a good product. by vistic · · Score: 4, Informative

    I use the TonicPoint Viewer for Mac instead of OpenOffice or Powerpoint... it has way fewer troubles with fonts. If I open a Windows PowerPoint presentation in Mac PowerPoint, I usually end up seeing weird characters instead of bullets in lists... and equations with greek letters, etc. are almost always messed up.

    So at least now I believe Google Presently will be a decent product.

  11. Re:Do you want it to replace MS Office? by larry+bagina · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I agree. Complain all you want about MS, I have a legal copy of Office (2000) on my computer and they can't take it away. I can save the files on my hard drive (in a variety of formats), and I can open files I created years ago. What if google cancelled Google Office? You're fucked. Or if they get busted on patent infringement. Or if they wreck the program with dubious features? (MS isn't the only one that does that). Yes, let's give the company complete control over our office documents. They promised not to be evil.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  12. An Access solution would be needed too... by not+already+in+use · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ...And it wouldn't be hard. Just use an existing OSS database as the back-end solution (mySQL, PostgreSQL comes to mind) and then create a front-end that makes it easy for the layperson to set up tables and create queries, forms and reports. Considering the resources Google has at hand, this wouldn't be too difficult and would have a free stable core already available to them.

    --
    Similes are like metaphors
    1. Re:An Access solution would be needed too... by misleb · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The LAST thing this world needs is an even more available Access-like product. It is amazing what kidn of abominations "laypeople" can come up with given these kinds of tools. And then they start relying on them. And then you have to support them... and perhaps try to export their hideous data structures into something else more sane later. That is IF you can manage to pry the tool from their cold, dead hands. No way, man. Lets keep some things difficult. There are just some things that should be left to professionals. Database design is one of them.

      -matthew

      --
      "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
  13. Re:Competing with MSFT by misleb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I know what I mainly need from an "office suite" is just a good word processor, one that doesnt lag 10 keystrokes behind me typing a simple letter.


    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
  14. Targeted ads! by iamacat · · Score: 4, Funny

    I would have to see ads for competitors show up during presentation of my product.

  15. Google Office Ajax13 by popo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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 : )
  16. Re:Competing with MSFT by ZombieRoboNinja · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When I'm editing a 200-page Pages document, I get up to five seconds of lag per keystroke on my G4 Powerbook.

  17. Easier said... by encoderer · · Score: 2, Informative

    That's a lot easier said than done.

    I don't know if you've actually USED Docs but the last time I did--about 2-3 weeks ago--it didn't even have find & replace capability. All it had was "replace all" and even that had "experimental" warnings all over it and couldn't be undone.

    So saying "All they need is a good API and a mechanism for plugins" when they can't even do find & replace is just a little silly, in my opinion.

    Maybe. In about 2 years. At the earliest.

  18. S5 is very handy by DusterBar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have used S5 for my presentations for a while now, and mainly for two reasons:

    1. I almost always have an internet connection (or network connection) and thus can get at any of the presentations I need. I also can let the viewers see the presentation any time they want - just need that browser...
    2. The ability to have both the printed and presentation form in one simple text document is so nice. Editing, updating, version control, etc. is just so much easier. And with the document being usable by all users, I don't need the "Windows" or "Mac" (and, rarely, the "Linux") compatible presentation system - I just do it all in one place and it just works.
    I think Google may have something here. For most presentations (those that don't look like a 1990's MTV spot) this stuff just works. I just hope that they do something similar.
  19. Hat trick!!! by Duncan3 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Awesome, now I need my laptop to work, the projector to be in a good mood, _AND_ an internet connection... in a place i've probably never been until the presentation.

    Things are hard enough as it is, but good grief!

    --
    - Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
  20. Re:Google Office Ajax13 by Graywolf · · Score: 2, Informative

    Desktoptwo seems to be using a VNC applet to render Acrobat and OpenOffice application GUIs, so no "web-based Java version of OpenOffice", just horribly compressed visuals in a laggy VNC window to a machine running OO.

  21. I'm converted! by mjrobinson · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've just been spending the last week moving all my documents to Google Docs and I think it's great.

    I want to keep my docs forever
    I moved everything over simply because my docs are spread across multiple machines some of which are ancient. I suddenly found myself wanting an ancient document that was stored on a laptop that didn't have any Internet connection. Luckily it still worked but it was a game getting the docs to a more modern PC. With Google docs I won't care what media the docs stored on, nor what computer or OS.

    Backups
    Sure I can all hear you smugly saying just get it off your backups but in those days I'd probably of used a plate sized floppy disk and would now be wondering where I insert the thing into a modern PC. Now I don't have to care about backups as they do it for me.

    Accessibility
    I can access all my files from any computer, any OS, anywhere in the world (as long as I have some form of Internet connection).

    Sharing
    I can keep my docs private or give access to specific people. I can also make them public if there is anyone out there sorry enough to read my ramblings.

    Collaborate
    I can work with others on the same documents.

    Permanence
    OK Google might not be here for ever but I bet they'll be here longer than MS and certainly longer than any of my PC's will last.

    Features
    I'm one of those users who probably only uses 80% of the features in Word so a reduced feature set doesn't matter to me. The formatting features are roughly the same as those offered by web based email systems.

    Is it perfect
    No - it can be a bit clunky in places and it seems to prefer shorter documents to larger ones. I figure it will probably get better over time and I was happy to switch with just the benefits as they stand at the moment. Oh, did I mention it was free?