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Google Launches New Assault On Microsoft Office
Hugh Pickens writes writes "BetaNews reports that Google has announced the global availability of Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, which went into beta late last year with technology that builds off Google's acquisition of DocVerse. Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office is essentially a plugin for Windows versions of the productivity suite (2003, 2007, 2010). 'The plugin syncs your work through Google's cloud, so everyone can contribute to the same version of a file at the same time,' says Google Apps product manager Shan Sinha. Additionally, Google announced a 90-day trial for Appsperience, described as 'a way for companies that currently use cumbersome legacy systems to see how web-powered tools help their teams work together more effectively.'"
The title does not seem to go with the article. It sounds like Google is adding more functionality to Microsoft Office, free of charge. What am I missing?
Home of The Suki Series
You can't have multiple people editing a word document anymore than you can have multiple people driving a car on their way to the office.
To make such a far reaching statement, I assume you've actually tried it, right?
Well, I have and i find it works surprisingly well. We have two women where I work; one works mostly on the internet side and the other mostly on the b&m side. They both have to collaborate on creating things like custom order forms and promotional literature, etc. to send out to new clients.
Before I got there, one would start something in Excel or Word and make it a little ways, then email it to the other who would do some more work then email it back. They would do this however many times it took until they were satisfied.
The first thing I did was get them off of Office, then I showed them how to use Google Docs and the collaborative editing features. I've never seen two happier women over a word processor in my life. Now, what used to take days takes less than an hour. It's amazing. The little green cursor pops up on one screen and the red one on another and away they go.
The simultaneous editing of documents, in my opinion, makes up for any lack of features that Google Docs may suffer from in comparison to Office. It's unbelievable how much more productive people are when they take the time actually try it out and get used to it.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
SharePoint is good for a lot of things, but I would put Google Docs like collaboration pretty far down the list. It's great for large projects. I've seen construction companies and law firms leverage it very successfully. But for 10 people, Google Docs is probably all you need.
The thing I like about SharePoint is the way it supports processes and work flows. For example, if you have something like a construction bidding process where you're often filling out the same forms over and over again, and a lot of people are involved at different phases of the process, you can setup a work flow to route the documents from person to person. SharePoint handles the noticing "Hey Bob, it's time for you to sign off on X, Y and Z! Click here."
All registered users of Microsoft Office 2010 enjoy the free Sky Drive service, a 2 GB storage space in "the cloud".
Not only can you share files with others, but it integrates directly with the "Save" command in Office as one of the destinations.
Oh, and the people you invite to collaborate with you don't even have to have Office. They can log in (for free) and edit your documents via the web-based versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. It's rather slick, and yes, it works in Firefox and Safari.
-David