wired.com— Google's new web-based office software suite, which the company announced Thursday, is a swift kick to the teeth delivered squarely in the direction of Microsoft. Or is it?
Feb 24, 2007View in Crawl 4
"imagiine planning ahead and saving docs you need to your HD before you leave."And how do you plan to open/edit those documents without access to Google Apps? You'd need something like, say, office or OO. That defeats the purpose, kind of.
Tried Google Apps, didn't like it: latency, lack of privacy, missing features. Instead, I use free Open Office ( openoffice.org ) and write all my data to my local hard drive, which is encrypted with free TrueCrypt ( TrueCrypt.org ). If someone steals my laptop they cannot access my data.
I still use Office 97 - that's 10 YEARS of google and I got a database system with it. Yeah, I could use Open Office and MySQL or similar, or even MSDE or SQL Server Express, but I actually like using Access (even though the database can corrupt).
I can safely say this is something my company will NEVER consider.We have plenty of employees and contractors working around the world in the marine engineering industry and many of the places they travel don't have the best of connections. Having office on their machines, or whatever applications they need, means they can still work and sync up with others when they have connectivity. With Google Aps or any similar service it would mean no work would be getting done.Heck, even when on route to locations connectivity is not possible and is rare. At least with Office they can get work done on long flights, train rides and such. Once again, with Google, no work can be done.Add in that we, like many companies, deal with some sensitive information that we don't want on some server who knows where that is completely out of our control. And that the tools lack the majority of features that Office has and there's no reason to switch.People have to learn that office applications like these are a business market primarily. The home market is a very small fraction. For a business to change to this they would need to evalute it and come to the conclusion that one or more of the following is true:1) Switching to google apps will increase productivity2) Switching to google apps will increase quality and/or performance3) Switching to google apps will save the company moneyAll of which are untrue.1) There is nothing that is part of google apps that will increase productivity beyond Office. The only place it comes close would be via colaboration aspect, however if that was important to your company you likely already have a more full featured system in place to handle it that your employees are trained with.2) Google apps lacks many many features.3) Considering the bulk pricing that most companies have for purchasing office licenses google apps at $50/year are not much, if any, cheaper over the couse of the deployment life cycle of a version of office (typically 3-5 years). Add to this that the cost of switching an entire suite of applications so central to most companies would be incredibly cost prohibitive through training, migration and new policy creation there would be no way any company would save money by switching.
"Yeah .. what a rip off, $150 for software that'll last a 3, 4 or 5 year degree is a joke. You should have paid $50 a year for a stripped down version that requires an internet connection to use."There is a 100% free version (ad-supported) of Google Apps. This is what a student might want to do, instead of paying $150 for Office.
I'm a consultant and over the last year and a half I haven't had access to the Internet while at the clients site [working for 3 separate clients]. Until they offer some sort of offline support I don't think it can take off. Telling your boss you couldn't complete the spreadsheet because you couldn't access the Internet just won't cut it. Maybe for small businesses this is feasible but overall it is still lacking business applicability.
Anthro, like sekhui said, be very afraid. If everyone was scared of changing "the way things work for most people", we'd never evolve! A major advantage of Google Apps is the (up to) 100 2 GB mailboxes mirrored on servers around the world. And who said you can't hook up Outlook to your Google Apps account with POP? Ok, POP isn't IMAP, but set things up so you organise only on Outlook not on Google and you'll be fine.Like for all technologies, there'll be early adopters for this one. Then there'll be those who mix and match to get the best of both worlds (I guess I'm here) and there'll be those who stay where they are (nothing wrong with that if there's a good reason).
I think this is more aimed at businesses. Businesses don't (or shouldn't have) used Gmail accounts so looks like they figured there'd be no migration involved. But if you must export/import, try searching for their "Fetcher" feature.
tm8992Feb 25, 2007
"imagiine planning ahead and saving docs you need to your HD before you leave."And how do you plan to open/edit those documents without access to Google Apps? You'd need something like, say, office or OO. That defeats the purpose, kind of.
netinetiFeb 25, 2007
Tried Google Apps, didn't like it: latency, lack of privacy, missing features. Instead, I use free Open Office ( openoffice.org ) and write all my data to my local hard drive, which is encrypted with free TrueCrypt ( TrueCrypt.org ). If someone steals my laptop they cannot access my data.
zhulienFeb 25, 2007
I still use Office 97 - that's 10 YEARS of google and I got a database system with it. Yeah, I could use Open Office and MySQL or similar, or even MSDE or SQL Server Express, but I actually like using Access (even though the database can corrupt).
yazilliclickFeb 25, 2007
I can safely say this is something my company will NEVER consider.We have plenty of employees and contractors working around the world in the marine engineering industry and many of the places they travel don't have the best of connections. Having office on their machines, or whatever applications they need, means they can still work and sync up with others when they have connectivity. With Google Aps or any similar service it would mean no work would be getting done.Heck, even when on route to locations connectivity is not possible and is rare. At least with Office they can get work done on long flights, train rides and such. Once again, with Google, no work can be done.Add in that we, like many companies, deal with some sensitive information that we don't want on some server who knows where that is completely out of our control. And that the tools lack the majority of features that Office has and there's no reason to switch.People have to learn that office applications like these are a business market primarily. The home market is a very small fraction. For a business to change to this they would need to evalute it and come to the conclusion that one or more of the following is true:1) Switching to google apps will increase productivity2) Switching to google apps will increase quality and/or performance3) Switching to google apps will save the company moneyAll of which are untrue.1) There is nothing that is part of google apps that will increase productivity beyond Office. The only place it comes close would be via colaboration aspect, however if that was important to your company you likely already have a more full featured system in place to handle it that your employees are trained with.2) Google apps lacks many many features.3) Considering the bulk pricing that most companies have for purchasing office licenses google apps at $50/year are not much, if any, cheaper over the couse of the deployment life cycle of a version of office (typically 3-5 years). Add to this that the cost of switching an entire suite of applications so central to most companies would be incredibly cost prohibitive through training, migration and new policy creation there would be no way any company would save money by switching.
kripkensteinFeb 25, 2007
"Yeah .. what a rip off, $150 for software that'll last a 3, 4 or 5 year degree is a joke. You should have paid $50 a year for a stripped down version that requires an internet connection to use."There is a 100% free version (ad-supported) of Google Apps. This is what a student might want to do, instead of paying $150 for Office.
kckabobFeb 25, 2007
I'm a consultant and over the last year and a half I haven't had access to the Internet while at the clients site [working for 3 separate clients]. Until they offer some sort of offline support I don't think it can take off. Telling your boss you couldn't complete the spreadsheet because you couldn't access the Internet just won't cut it. Maybe for small businesses this is feasible but overall it is still lacking business applicability.
cclapperMay 20, 2007
Google appz rock the world. Its a defenitely a switch!<a class="user" href="http://www.you-switch.org">http://www.you-switch.org</a>
cclapperJul 2, 2007
Here is the mirror<a class="user" href="http://www.you-switch.org/electricity-suppliers">http://www.you-switch.org/electricity-suppliers</a>
avssrsOct 8, 2007
Anthro, like sekhui said, be very afraid. If everyone was scared of changing "the way things work for most people", we'd never evolve! A major advantage of Google Apps is the (up to) 100 2 GB mailboxes mirrored on servers around the world. And who said you can't hook up Outlook to your Google Apps account with POP? Ok, POP isn't IMAP, but set things up so you organise only on Outlook not on Google and you'll be fine.Like for all technologies, there'll be early adopters for this one. Then there'll be those who mix and match to get the best of both worlds (I guess I'm here) and there'll be those who stay where they are (nothing wrong with that if there's a good reason).
avssrsOct 8, 2007
I think this is more aimed at businesses. Businesses don't (or shouldn't have) used Gmail accounts so looks like they figured there'd be no migration involved. But if you must export/import, try searching for their "Fetcher" feature.
maccodeDec 1, 2007
<a class="user" href="http://www.you-switch.org">http://www.you-switch.org</a>