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Google Adds Microsoft Word, Excel Editing To Latest Chrome OS Build

Posted by timothy on from the assembling-voltron dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Google has added native Microsoft Office file editing to the dev channel for Chrome OS. The addition means Chrome OS users on the latest build of the company's browser-based operating system can now experiment with editing Microsoft Word and Excel files. The dev channel for Chrome OS is updated once or twice weekly. Since the feature has made it in there, it's likely to show up in the beta channel, and then eventually the stable channel. Today's news that Google is already working on editing, and not just viewing, Microsoft Office documents in Chrome OS is very interesting because of the potential. Maybe by the end of year, the functionality will make it into the Chrome browser, too."

16 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Google going for the jugular! by kawabago · · Score: 2

    Google is striking at Microsoft's heart. About time.

    1. Re:Google going for the jugular! by stephanruby · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't understand. What does this do that Google Docs/Drive doesn't already do?

      Will this get us pixel-perfect wysiwyg editing of Microsoft Documents?

      Somehow, I doubt it. Google Docs/Drive doesn't even get that right for PDF documents. I doubt it will get that right for Microsoft Word Documents, which by design are much much worst than PDF documents.

    2. Re:Google going for the jugular! by Knuckles · · Score: 3, Insightful

      http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm

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      "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
    3. Re:Google going for the jugular! by Knuckles · · Score: 2

      That doesn't mean anything, Microsoft is not compliant with the standard.

      I'm not kidding, MS dumped a bunch of lame "documentation" on the comitteee then when the committee tried to tidy up some of the incredible amounts of stupidity in it, MS just ignored them. MS has the most compliant implementation, but no full implementation exists.

      I know all that, but that does not change the fact that they can't change important parts of the specs willy-nilly, like the guy I replied to suggested.

      --
      "When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
    4. Re:Google going for the jugular! by Colonel+Korn · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't understand. What does this do that Google Docs/Drive doesn't already do?

      Will this get us pixel-perfect wysiwyg editing of Microsoft Documents?

      Somehow, I doubt it. Google Docs/Drive doesn't even get that right for PDF documents. I doubt it will get that right for Microsoft Word Documents, which by design are much much worst than PDF documents.

      This is Google. They like to make redundant products where they'll get the main concept right but half a half-assed implementation which gets improved for a few iterations before it's abandoned and eventually taken off the market for a somewhat inferior alternative with more social networking features and less core functionality.

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      "I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
    5. Re:Google going for the jugular! by flyingfsck · · Score: 2

      However, MS can and do, willy nilly ignore any part of the spec they want to.

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      Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
  2. Not just for the web anymore by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 4, Funny

    Seems google is inventing Gemacs?

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    1. Re:Not just for the web anymore by arielCo · · Score: 2

      Umm, you're aware this is about Chrome OS the operating system, not the web browser, right? TFT.

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  3. Even better: Change MS Office's default format by bogaboga · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If I were Google, I'd bankroll efforts to develop software that would change MS office's default file formats to "something sensible", in addition to championing efforts to have this capability enabled in every office installation. That would surely produce interesting responses.

    1. Re: Even better: Change MS Office's default format by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What is more sensible than the MS Office Open XML standard (ISO/IEC 29500)?

      An open format.

      Office Open XML is an XML mapping of the Microsoft Office binary format. It's less open than a Pyongyang bank on beloved leader's birthday.

    2. Re: Even better: Change MS Office's default format by blarkon · · Score: 2

      Google would clearly prefer to drop billions into stuff like balloon internet as opposed to fighting the endless war on Microsoft Office.

  4. Re:Editing... by gl4ss · · Score: 2

    Yes, but QuickOffice only works with Microsoft Office documents, a format Google doesn't own. Do you think they would rather see people using QuickOffice to make Microsoft Office documents, or Google Docs to make Google Docs? QuickOffice is just there to provide the support that is neccessary by today's standards, but probably nothing more.

    I think it should be mentioned that google picked up quickoffice recently(after quickoffice lost it's big license deals), so they own it.

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  5. Re:Yay.. more bloat ! by r1348 · · Score: 2, Informative

    We're talking of Chrome OS here, it's the operative system of the Chromebooks.

  6. Re:Yay.. more bloat ! by BrokenHalo · · Score: 2

    Well, if people want it, then they can use it. However, though TFS says "Maybe by the end of year, the functionality will make it into the Chrome browser, too", I really hope it doesn't.

    I'm one of those people who are a bit ambivalent about our preferred browsers; I was a late-ish adopter of Chrome (and Chromium) after Firefox, and occasionally I swap back and forth. Currently I'm back with Firefox on my computer, and Chrome on my phone. But if the Chrome browser gets padded out with a WP/spreadsheet package, it's very unlikely that I'll ever use it again.

  7. Re:Yay.. more bloat ! by DragonWriter · · Score: 2

    Well, if people want it, then they can use it. However, though TFS says "Maybe by the end of year, the functionality will make it into the Chrome browser, too", I really hope it doesn't.

    Its worth noting that the new editor is, like the existing Chrome Office Viewer, a Native Client app resulting from porting QuickOffice that is installed-by-default on the supported builds of Chrome OS. I would suspect that, if it "makes it into Chrome browser", it will do so as an app on the Chrome Web Store that Chrome browser users can choose to install or not, as they see fit.

  8. Re:Can it read mail yet? by DragonWriter · · Score: 2

    And by definition, operating systems cannot include applications.

    That's a very odd definition. Given that basically every OS ever sold has included applications.

    Google needs to prepare for its next anti-monopoly trial if it is going to start bundling app-like functionality in its OS.

    Every OS has always included bundled apps. That's not an anti-monopoly problem.

    It is an antimonopoly problem if you engage in unfair competition by bundling apps for which there is an existing competitive market with a monopoly OS as the centerpiece of a broader pattern of anticompetitive practices (e.g., prohibiting resellers from including competing apps or removing the bundled app, etc.) designed to extend to the OS monopoly into the market that the bundled app is in.

    People who don't really understand what happened in the Microsoft-bundling-IE cases often generalize incorrectly from their misunderstanding of the issues in that case.