googleblog.blogspot.com — Today we're starting a new path to better enable developers to customize and build on top of Google Docs with two new tools. Instead of delivering just one or two new types of reports, or a new visual map mashup we decided to deliver a platform on which anyone, not just Google, could build the next best thing.
Mar 19, 2008 View in Crawl 4
prlmeMar 19, 2008
The next best thing will be a old language with a new hat on...oh wait thats AJAX.
hellawaitsyouMar 19, 2008
google is going to take over the world!!
gr8oneMar 19, 2008
I noticed this feature while trying out Google Apps for business. The "Sites" feature (the JotSpot wiki), allows you to create a "Dashboard" page that you can put all kinds of widgets on. One of those types of widges was a Google Docs widget. It basically shows the upper left hand corner of a document or spreadsheet. So you could have a spreadsheet that charts some sort of progress, and uses a chart in the upper left hand corner, and have that chart show up on a page on your project wiki for managment to see without having to open the spreadsheet. Took me a while to see the usefulness of it, but I think if I sat down and thought about it for a day, there's probably a bunch of ways this could be really useful for people.
fkr3Mar 19, 2008
I'm pretty sure Microsoft will outlive most of us.
fkr3Mar 20, 2008
I'm a year or two older than you and you're overlooking two things Microsoft has in their favour:- a whole lot of cash- a whole lot of talented employeesThey're not "doing nothing" to secure their future.
honoredmuleMar 20, 2008
If you are a little older than me, perhaps you can remember IBM of old, and the horrors they visited on the tech industry until they were neutered by consumer and government awareness. They're still around, and they never did run out of "a whole lot of cash" or talented employees, nor did they stop competing on technical merit. Do you know anyone who uses OS/2 today? Can you name one IBM software package or technology on which you depend today?Now IBM's software interests lie with forward-thinking ideas like the Open Source Initiative, and supporting applications like Eclipse.Proprietary tech cannot survive, because no matter how deep the vendor lock-in, sooner or later it will be so massively outperformed by agile, open technology that isn't encumbered by 30 years worth of backwards compatibility, that even old customers will switch. But far earlier than that, people like me who aren't already "locked in" make a point of using open formats and technology so that MY innovation will always be safe, accessible, and forward-compatible, without dependence on corporate support or specific platforms. In a generation, Microsoft's "whole lot of cash [and] talented employees" will be able to do no more than add their average products to the shelf alongside a healthy range of competitors' offerings. What will happen when >30% of the consumer base does NOT run a Microsoft-certified WIN32 or .NET envirnoment? What do you suppose Microsoft could do that would reverse their declining trend? Do you think keeping up a bi-yearly OS refresh will impress customers now?MS COMPLETELY lost the browser lock-in tactic, now they're losing the browser war altogether, step by slow-and-painful step. They're desperately struggling to maintain their Office lock-in, but they're having to try to sell their lock-in strategy to the very people who's primary goal is to prevent vendor lock-in, because their consumers got smart and made open standards a requirement. OOo definitely isn't the Firefox of office suites, but how long after document formats are truly standardized will one shows up? After 7 years, where's all the features that were promised with Vista? What new hotness will allure wavering developers back to writing Windows-only software, at the cost of narrowing the target audience? (It's definitely NOT Silverlight.) For that matter, what does Microsoft really have to offer developers at all if the Windows-user demographic ISN'T everyone anymore? Web-apps suck compared to desktop equivalents, but they exist anyway, primarily for two reasons: service-based business models are enabled, and web-apps are platform independent and (because they're based on open technology) quick and easy to develop. But desktop apps can be OS-agnostic too, and Windows-only software development has been declining steadily for many years, DESPITE the fact that .NET is actually a very good development platform, reasonably efficient dynamic runtime, and RELATIVELY future-proof (compared to WIN32). Many consumers may be using Windows for another 20 years yet, but smart developers know NOW is the time to jump ship, because it's stupid to stay chained to the deck when you could be effortlessly flying anywhere at will...no matter how long it takes to sink. If you don't NEED Microsoft, why stay tied to them? And the moment MS makes you give up your legacy code, why would you stay on the only platform (except Mac, maybe?) with the ability to force your hand like that?All the technologies that have proven truly resilient to age are owned by no one and dependent on nothing proprietary (ex: perl, posix, TCP/IP, email, ECMAScript, C/C++ [still the languages most used for professional/commercial software], SQL, apache...) and all the money and talent in the world cannot bring back the specific ignorance, indifference, and short-sightedness that hobbled Microsoft's customers 30 years ago. Microsoft's decline will not be swift, and their complete demise may be a long time coming yet or may take the form of self-reinvention, but they are already backpedaling and playing catch-up in over half their key markets. Once their OS and office market share reaches a certain flashpoint threshold, Microsoft will be very quickly marginalized, and that's where the change WILL be swift. Suddenly, they'll be just another software company (hardware company more likely...that seems to be a trend with declining software companies), and tomorrow's WIN32 will be today's timeshare systems, while .NET gets run only in "legacy" systems (and while perl, for example, is still a first-class citizen in terms of language support). You can run WIN32, assuming you've got a legacy environment for it, but don't expect any help or bugfixes from us...we only sell zunes and xboxes now.These days, more people need to worry about Google lock-in, and to figure out where that lock-in will originate, because we already know and reject Microsoft's tactics, and their day in the sun has come and gone. I saw an article introducing Google's "Gadgets" in Google Docs. Perhaps the first baby step toward "extending" open tech (ODF) to produce lock-in...or perhaps I need to be looking out for far less predictable, Microsoft-esque tactics. Maybe dependence on Google's open, online services are the next form of platform lock-in. Maybe that doesn't seem so harmful now...much like govt. standardization on MS Office didn't seem harmful 30 years ago...