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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."

23 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.

  2. 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 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.

  3. 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 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.

    3. 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.

    4. 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
  4. 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"

  5. 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.

  6. 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.
  7. 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
  8. 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.

  9. 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
  10. Targeted ads! by iamacat · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  11. 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 : )