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GDocs vs. ThinkFree vs. Zoho vs. MS Office

CWmike writes "Web-based productivity suites, once almost a contradiction in terms, have become real challengers to desktop applications. Google Docs, ThinkFree, and Zoho, have all made major improvements in recent months. They're becoming both broader, with more applications, and deeper, with more features and functionality in existing apps. The question is: Are these three applications really ready to take on a desktop-based heavy hitter like Microsoft Office?"

11 of 226 comments (clear)

  1. No by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do you honestly think a business is going to allow its private correspondence to be handled over the Internet by one of these programs? Unless the company has nothing it would like to hide from its competitors, this isn't going to happen. There is too much fear of corporate spying.

    1. Re:No by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But how many businesses use e-mail? A bunch. How many use even plain-text e-mails? A good amount. How many use Windows and don't keep up with security patches? A ton. How many do you think have an outdated version of Apache running the webserver they have? One with a known flaw? How many even use unencrypted wireless networks? Or weak passwords? There are a lot more things the businesses have to and should worry about than a reputable company (Google) being hacked or broken into by a competitor.

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  2. Re:Not alone... by Darkness404 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    No, they need OOo. Of all the competitors to Office, OOo is the most used one. I know a good amount of people who use OOo and most are even Windows users, yet I know of no one that uses Google Docs, ThinkFree, or Zoho. I'm sure there are some users, but no where near as many as OOo.

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    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  3. Re:File format!!! by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    because it isnt sufficiently interoperable with MSoffice.

    Wait a second... Lets see, I can save an item in OOo and I can open it up in Office and still get all the text just fine. I can use a saved file from Office and open it up in OOo and still get all the text just fine. However, I can take a saved file from Office 2003 and open it up in Office XP which should be compatible, but wait... The file from Office 2003 looks totally different on Office XP! But aha! I have Office 2003 installed on my laptop... But wait! It looks different on there then on the Office 2003 at work!

    Face it. Even Office isn't good at being sufficiently interoperable with Office. But that hasn't killed Office... Yet.

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    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  4. My objection exactly by Nursie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Same objection I always had with GMail.

    Google is then in charge of your data.

    I don't care if google is staffed exclusively by Ophanim (closest rank of angels to god), I'm not willing to trust a third party with my stuff, and neither should any self respecting company.

  5. Litmus test by narcberry · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The simple litmus test: Would you submit a resume using those tools?

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  6. Re:eh by Vectronic · · Score: 3, Insightful

    LOL...

    Assuming that you (the AC) are WillyHill, you are becoming as disturbing of a thought as Twitter himself is.

    The links above are circumstantial evidence of the ownership of each account.

    WTF?

    Epic shill threads

    FTW?

    Due to trolling, this journal entry has comments disabled. If you would like to report a new account, just post on one of my open JEs

    TFW?!

    Are you building a civil case over this? Or are you going to start a Not-For-Profit Twitter Reduction Organization, Or are you just trying to invoke some sort of Slashdot method to delimitate user accounts, perhaps a mandatory subscription? Is there a newsgroup, or a website in the making?

    You can't stop "Twitters" by imposing more rules, you just make them more devious, and by creating such "following" of him/it/them you are solidifying his position as The Most Infamous Troll On Slashdot and most likely if not certainly making him more eager to continue, notice how he seems to be picking up the pace with new accounts? there's what like 8 or so vvillyhill/wiIIyHiII/wlliyhill accounts now... you are feeding the problem, unless of course, you actually are the problem, and a little more adept shilling method, pretend to combat your own trolling or something.

    How hard is it to mod him down, or to roll the wheel on your mouse past his comments?

  7. Re:easier way to quit emacs by Trogre · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... and then remember that you had another emacs session open in another terminal.

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
  8. Re:No.... by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, which is it? Never, or not for a while? :)

    Well, 10 years ago we couldn't imagine anything like YouTube, and the idea of streaming media was almost laughable back when most people had dial-up. The very idea of a browser on a cell phone would have been seen as impossible, and a phone that would be driven purely by a touch screen was the stuff of science fiction and would have cost $1000 easily. 10 years ago, Linux on the desktop seemed like something that was impossible. 10 years ago, a $200 desktop or a $300 laptop would have been looked at as if it was a scam. Yet today just about everyone visits YouTube, uses streaming media, and nearly every phone has a browser, and the iPhone has been a success and now only costs $200 (well more if you count in what expensive plan AT&T tries to put you on). Linux is pre-installed on many laptops and desktops today, and we have the $200 gPC and a $300 EEE PC. So, when I say, for a while, it means that today it sounds impossible, but 5-10 years from now, we might all be using it.

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    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  9. Re:eh by penix1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The only problem I have with web based apps, and one of its major stumbling blocks, is it is useless without an internet connection. Lose your connection, lose your productivity. No amount of portability can make up for that simple fact.

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  10. Re:eh by andy9701 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google has tried to get around this with Google Gears. When installed, it lets you use Google Docs offline. Sadly, it doesn't support all browsers (I know that it works in Firefox, not sure about IE or Opera, pretty sure that it doesn't work in Safari).

    While not an ideal situation, it works. You do have a point, though, in that if you don't have an internet connection you are pretty screwed if you need to access your data that is only stored online.

    Hopefully as Wi-Fi becomes more ubiquitous this will be less of an issue, but not much else can be done about it really.