Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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.
I spent a decent amount of time today reproducing an OO.o spreadsheet in Google Docs - still a long way to go there before it is a threat. The gDocs spreadsheet does some cool things for a web app - and I was impressed with some of the features (for a web app - see how I have to keep qualifying?) but it still doesn't come close to the desktop app.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
From TFA:
And because you work in a Web browser, they're cross-platform applications by default:
At work we are going through some issues because Apple decided to deprecate Quicktime for Java and now we are scrambling to find a replacement that will work on Windows and Macs. However, honestly writing cross-platform apps that play movies and deal with databases and lots of networked files isn't trivial to make cross platform, but it might be pretty easy if we went to the web. Is this the future direction for "cross-platform" applications?
Monstar L
Last time I had to use the Google Docs suite (3 months ago), it was to access a shared spreadsheet: each people had to fill in what food or drink they were bringing in at a party, in order to have some kind of co-ordination. The "shared document" concept is really nice, however the AJAX controls were killing the performance of my laptop from 2004. So I have trouble imagining doing work with such a solution - at least with my configuration.
Of course, it would be probably better with a newer computer, but I feel sad that an application which is recognised as being a hog such as MS Office runs better on my computer than Google Docs. (I took a glance at TFA, and it seems to imply that Google Docs is the fastest solution of all 3).
The last time I tried the google docs spreadsheet (maybe 6 months ago?), it was ridiculously slow. I was about to post here and point that out, but then I thought I ought to check how the performance was today, in case it had improved. Well, I don't have any real data, but my subjective impression is that they must have made vast improvements in its performance since the last time I tried it. It really seems fine now.
The question in my mind now is how many people are really going to want this.
I teach physics at a community college, and I have a bunch of linux boxes in the lab alongside the windows machines. The linux boxes only have Ooo, and the Windows boxes have both Ooo and Excel. It's been interesting seeing how students react to being presented with a choice between Excel and Ooo. I actually have documentation in the lab manual for Ooo, and none for Excel. Nevertheless, the vast majority don't want to mess with Ooo. Even if they have never used a spreadsheet before in their life, Excel is a brand name they've heard, so that's what they gravitate toward.
Find free books.
Just give up already, you want to spend the money and buy a nice new Vista PC. Piano black, the ribbon, veterans love it and newbies grok it. It all works together so well it's like a dream. Opens your old documents and saves the new ones in a better than internationally accepted standards way. Worth every penny, $450 for the ultimate OS and $450 for the bestes Office suite, so your computer should not cost much less than $1000. Think of how it will train your children in the skills every office demands. Yeah, now your wallet is moving.
No calls now, I'm
If you knew more about emacs you would know that you don't need to ssh to quit the program. From within the program just type Control-Z ... then after the Stopped message type "killall -9 emacs"....
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.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
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.
The simple litmus test: Would you submit a resume using those tools?
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
I just visited the home page of each of the three alternatives mentioned, and read their own words about what features their word processors offer. It was hard not to laugh: they actually describe things like being able to save your files and collaborate with others as features. I'm not sure any of them even mentioned a single real word processing feature anywhere on their list. And while some of the on-line features they plug have some merit — though I suspect many of them are really only gimmicks of little real world value — of course being on-line comes with some major downsides in the security and reliability areas.
Then I read TFA. (Yes, really. It's quiet night. ;-)) I think this quote is the most telling:
All three of these word processors are capable of tasks such as formatting the typefaces, placing and sizing graphics, arranging paragraphs, and setting up tables. But only ThinkFree offers the really sophisticated features, such as letting you format a hanging indent.
(Emphasis added)
If adding a hanging indent is sophisticated, these things aren't even glorified text editors, never mind word processors. Where's my real-time word count and spelling checking? My document structuring and organisation tools? My cross-references, footnotes and bibliographies? If they're going to pimp my pages, can I at least have a smart H&J algorithm and use my professional grade OpenType fonts? There is more to a word processor than basic text editing and the occasional picture or table!
I think it's safe to say the guys in Redmond don't need to start throwing chairs. The on-line apps aren't even Word from nearly two decades ago, yet.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I, the President of the Twitter Reduction Organization, request that you cease the unnecessary and vulgar bandmouthing of our organization. We provide a valuable service, and as of July 100% of all proceeds go directly towards Twitter suppression activities.
We accept Pay-Pal.
DATABASE WOW WOW
None of them are all that great. Do Google Apps do everything Office does? No, clearly not. But frankly, I think Office is overrated. Granted, my copy is a couple of years old, but I just don't have much use for it. I open most things in OpenOffice, but even then, I'm converting a lot of it to text. I find all office suites ponderous and bloated, more by feature creep than any particular flaw in coding. Send me text, and I'll put it in Scribus or LaTeX.
Google Docs should be thought of as a highly-collaborative text editing environment, not a word processor. It looks exceptionally good when you look at it that way.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
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.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
We tested and use Zoho and Google; both had serious collaboration bugs:
* Users could overwrite each other's others changes without knowing it. For example if Amy edits a cell (in the spreadsheet app) or text (in the word processor), and the update doesn't reach Bob in time, Bob could overwrite the same data with his own.
* Edits sometimes are not updated on other users' sessions quickly enough or, in some cases, at all.
Before you count on it for serious work, beware. It seems like a fundamental issue they should have anticipated on day one.
I just got an email from a google developer working on google docs who saw my comment on above, and was happy that someone had noticed the improved performance. He says they started a feature freeze a few months ago, and spent the last few months working exclusively on performance.
Find free books.
I run my own one man IT business and all and I really mean ALL of the documentation is handled through Google Docs.
It is great for collaboration purposes. Version management build in and to top it all off, I never have to worry about access or backup! Especially not with Google Gears that ensures access even when the internet is down (Never happens here)
Now google docs is indeed not too great if you want to do Desktop publishing which is what some people seem to think MS Word is for. I do need the odd picture included in my documents but I wrote a little application to streamline that process.
I made it available for free on my Google site of course. My program Pastry will archive every bitmap you copy and allow for easy upload to Google or anywhere else for that matter. Have a look on: http://vandinther.googlepages.com/pastry