Google Docs Aims At Microsoft Office Live

mikesd81 writes "Channel News reports that Google took an important step forward Monday in its rivalry with Microsoft Office Live, reporting that Google Docs will allow users to edit word processing documents offline. Google said users of its Google Docs word processing application can use Google Gears to save and then edit documents without being connected to the Internet. 'The offline capability will be limited to word processing documents, though the company plans to add it to spreadsheets and presentations in the future.'"

Comments

Rivalry?

[truthsearch]

There's a rivalry? I need to share spreadsheets with many various clients and they always suggest Google Docs. Never once have I heard a person ask to share a document with Microsoft Office Live. And my clients are each in very different industries.

Is there any real competition yet between the two in terms of user base?

Re:Rivalry?

[teknopurge]

Where the other 99.99999% of the business world just emails the Word doc to the people that need it.

You're right, there is no rivalry. OpenOffice is the only thing within striking distance of MS Office. Google Apps is a joke.

Regards,

Re:Rivalry?

[Hyppy]

An intelligent businesses from anywhere but the U.S. would avoid Google Docs or Microsoft Office Live or any of these web-based document solutions like the plague. The USAPATRIOT act is quite the liability, especially for businesses that must report any access of customer data by outside entities. A bit hard to do that when the access is done in secret, eh?

Re:Rivalry?

[Anonymous Coward]

I love Google Docs. When I had to kick my three-timing wife to the curb we used a google spreadsheet to collect data about our assets, debts, insurance policies, etc. for the property settlement phase of our divorce -- and another to track child expenses for our shared custody arrangement. It's awesome. I didn't have to interact with her anymore than was strictly necessary. Thank you, Google.

Re:Rivalry?

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Google Apps is a joke

Oh yeah? I bet you have not even tried it. No matter what Google haters and similar mods say, it is a very good online office application. In fact, I do not use MS Office any more (and have not even bought it with my latest pc) and guess what? I have not missed it at all, and in fact sharing it with others was never so easy. Sending docs by attachments? Not for me, anymore.

Different people and organizations have different needs. Saying "Its a joke" is as good as saying "MS Office is a joke". It serves a particular segment of the market and it serves it pretty good, and its getting better.

Now fuck off.

Re:Rivalry?

[MightyMartian]

It's a decent Office app. It's certainly no OO.org or Word, but for my particular needs, it's more than adequate. Being able to use it offline will make it much more useful.

Re:Rivalry?

[LLKrisJ]

OpenOffice is the only thing within striking distance of MS Office And even then, it often leaves much to be desired. I honestly applaud the efforts to come up with an alternative to MS Office. Because although MS offers a lot of functionality with it's software (You can produce some nice, stylish docs, as long as they stay relatively small) it also contains some absolutely incomprehensible faults;

1) Why the hell doesn't Outlook provide decent IMAP access??
2) Why can't I copy my Word2007 equations to Powerpoint???
3) What is up with that crap Master Document implementation
4) ...

That said though, OO can only compete with Office it it offers at least full support for all features in MSO. That means, opening doc or docx in OO would not lead to layout corruption, etc... Until now, that still is the case. Especially the OO Powerpoint counterpart I find particularly horrible.

I have been watching OO for a long time (4 years), but it seems bewildering to me that with current adoption by some governments and the large open source community, development of OO still seems to be progressing so horribly slow.

In the meantime I will stick to LaTeX and my trusty WinEdt for big docs...

Re:Rivalry?

[pandrijeczko]

Google Apps is a joke.

It's actually not a bad document collaboration tool without all that endless mucking about with email attachments and mapped network drives - not to mention some "quick and dirty" PDF conversion to boot.

And I can't for the life of me work out why so many people whine about tools that are basically free to use. If you've paid to use something and it's not very good, you've every right to complain - but if it's free then it can only be of benefit if you use it and absolutely no loss to you whatsoever if you don't.

Commoditization of software

[TheMeuge]

Google is riding the wave of computer hardware commoditization into one where general computing is also a commodity. Google's approach here is exemplary because it shows that monetizing every aspect of the consumer's digital interactions (which is essentially the current model for computing/internet-based businesses in the U.S.) is not necessarily the key to maximizing one's profits. By providing basic services free of charge, Google gains a share of a market that wasn't traditionally its own, and thus gains billions of additional impressions for its ads. Furthermore, by leveraging its trusted name, Google can now reasonably expect a fair increase in its ad audience with every additional service it offers.

This is a genius idea, which is an example of how forward thinking and good PR can bring in higher profits than unadulterated greed (yes, telecoms, I am looking at you). However, what this also means is that with its large cash purse, Google can continue to provide further services, channeling more and more monitor-watching eyes to its own webpages. Its purchase of Youtube provides ample evidence that Google won't be upset if you spend 100% of your computing time, on a Google-branded internet.

Re:Commoditization of software

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting.

By providing basic services free of charge, Google gains a share of a market that wasn't traditionally its own, and thus gains billions of additional impressions for its ads.

I'd never really thought about it before, but the way you put it, this sure sounds a lot like "embrace, embrace, extinquish." Google gives stuff away for free (Microsoft bundles games, anti-spyware, anti-virus and browser to OS) to gain more ad impressions (gain more software market). Google won't be upset if you spend 100% of your computing time, on a Google-branded internet. Microsoft won't be upset if you spend 100% of your software budget on MS products.

Although I use both of their services, I have no allegiance to MS or Google. It just seems like history repeating itself. We can only hope our new overlords are kinder and gentler. The one thing that spooks me a little is MS has never been in control or had access to the extreme amount of personal data Google does.

Re:Commoditization of software

[moderatorrater]

this sure sounds a lot like "embrace, embrace, extinquish." Where's the "extinguish" for google? Microsoft destroyed opponents by gaining their market share and then killing compatibility, making it so that things that worked on other platforms worked for Windows, but the opposite wasn't true.

Google's in significantly different markets and using different strategies. They're not pursuing marketing techniques to get market share, they get market share through having a superior product. When you use Google, you're not locked into using them all the time because of other considerations; there are no barriers to using yahoo instead.

Their google docs don't use a proprietary format, they use everyone else's formats, including word, pdf and openoffice. This means that the barrier for moving from google docs to another system is only the hassle of transferring the files, not in the formats being incompatible. They're not practicing lock-in of any kind, which is the fundamental difference between Google and Microsoft at this point: Google's playing nice, Microsoft is playing however they can.

So the comparison is dumb and inflammatory. Google's business model has been wholly different from the Microsoft model and (business-wise in the US) free of dirty tricks and underhanded maneuvers. Punish and condemn google for the bad things they've done, not for being the most successful software company to come around recently.

Re:iPhone

[BlueGecko]

The iPhone does not currently support Google Gears, so the offline portion could not even theoretically work. Thankfully, you're saved from having to worry about that, because you can't currently edit Google Docs on the iPhone when you are connected, either; just view them.

Opposite talk

[Vexorian]

Didn't docs come before office live?

Re:iPhone

[ashground]

Nope. It's built on Google Gears, which is only available for Windows, Mac (FireFox only), and Windows Mobile 5/6.

Source Code

[cbart387]

For those that are interested, the source code can be downloaded from here. Notice it's a BSD license.

Re:iPhone

[seasleepy]

Gears is available for Linux too.

I find Google Docs very useful

[MarkWatson]

I still use LaTex+OmniGraffle for serious writing and OpenOffice.org when customers use Microsoft document formats, but I find myself using Google Docs more for short notes, short papers, sharing writing with other GMail users, etc.

The addition of Google Gears based local document storage over the next few weeks will not be a feature I ill need often, but it will be good to have.

BTW, I use a utility tht you can find on the web (gdatacopier.py) to periodically back up all of my Google Docs - just in case.

consortium needed

[suck_burners_rice]

Why isn't a consortium forming between Google, Apple, and OpenOffice.org to give all three office suites the capability to edit each others' documents with 100% formatting and content compatibility, and 100% support on Windows, Mac, Java, and X11 based *nix environments? Each one of these organizations is formidable by itself, able to fight Microsoft off a bit here, a bit there. In the end, though, they're each a 600 pound gorilla, and Microsoft is an 800 pound gorilla. But these three organizations together, a team weighing in at 1800 pounds, would crush Microsoft like an ant.

Google Docs vs Microsoft Office Live

[Per Abrahamsen]

I have evaluated both for use by my workplace, mostly because I despise the the "document sharing through email". I used cvs (and LaTeX) for collaborations on group assignments as a student back in the 80s, so I know how much better it can be. Unfortunately, both fail in my current work environment.

Google Docs fail because it is not Microsoft Office, and I'm not going to convince my cow-orkers to learn a new set of office applications.

Microsoft Office Live fails because it is too complicated and confusing for me to learn, much less teach. I couldn't even figure out if the documents are under version control, and the "integration" into the office applications is a joke (it is very slow and requires multiple indirections just to open a document, and it takes a separate navigation bar).

So while my workplace is a lost cause, I use Google Docs with my family. It has a simple and intuitive interface, and my family are much less tied to MS Office than my workspace.