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81 Comments
- vbsurfer, on 10/12/2007, -2/+41Or you could just use whatever product you feel necessary to get the job done...
but wait a minute... nobody likes to hear that! - judsond, on 10/12/2007, -1/+37That's not true, Word had a lot more features in 1995 than docs has now. You can't even have headers and footers in docs... It's fine for some things, but not really a competitor to word yet, and I'm certainly no microsoft fan.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+31How can anyone even compare the two? Google docs and spreadsheets doesn't even come close to MS. I'm a Google fan but come on, you can't do much with the Google apps besides type some simple text.
- dankoleary, on 10/12/2007, -0/+23So true. I was playing with the new office 2007, and all I can say is WOW. It actually doesn't suck!
- steveoco, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22This can only be good for the users. Competition is great, and all the programs have their pros and cons. I stick with MS apps because they do exactly what I need and they have improved quite a lot.
- wilf_brim, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21No headers and footers? Wow, that's lame. Even my copy of WordPerfect in 1988 had that.
- IQ70, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Google Docs is akin to using Wordpad.
- VargVikernes, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18Exactly. I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of these kind of articles. I doesn't matter (and we don't care) what you use at home, but for businesses (especially larger) Google Doc is just a joke. And besides, no sane person in business would ever consider storing their sensitive data on Google's servers.
I'm sorry but we've seen this over and over again. Google makes something, analytics predict the second coming of Jesus, 2 years later one barely knows that app (hm, Google Talk). - yoshitomi, on 10/12/2007, -8/+21No one really cares about Linux, mate. It'll never acquire a mass market-share.
Anyway, you have OpenOffice. That's an amazing suite in itself so you don't need MS. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13joerodriguez:
That is the central flaw of FOSS software; features and bugfixes are always 'coming' and Firefox is perhaps the only flagship applications that is everything that the commercial equivalent is and more. Most users want a program to function *now*; they have work that must be done immediately, and have not the time to indulgently wait a month, six or twelve for a feature to be added, the functions in a commercial equivalent to be replicated, or a bug fixed. - yoshitomi, on 10/12/2007, -11/+22Put it this way: I'm a student and all of my work requires double-spacing.
Microsoft Word provides me that, Google does not. - IQ70, on 10/12/2007, -4/+15@ mikelieman
1. Tables
2. TOC
3. Numbering
4. Sectioning
5. Reference insertion
6. Error bars in Graphs
7. Pivot Tables for calculations
8. Powerpoint - dustyshadow, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10100,000,000 ?? You sure about that number?
- reiner15, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9agreed. I love the new 07 office.
- judsond, on 10/12/2007, -3/+119. Headers
10. Footers
11. Scripting
12. Menu customization - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Doesn't matter what google does or doesn't. Their policy of "retaining user data for all eternity" is enough to put me off anything google. Plus, all your docs are on someone else's server. I value the privacy of my data, thank you very much. Emails can be encrypted, so gmail is fine. Data as used by google apps cannot, so forget about it.
- SirBotchness, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5yea cause open source free software is so illegal. Guess all of those linux servers are goin down.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+10People who think that OOo or Google Spreadsheet can possibly usurp Office are cute; it is evident that they never have, and never will, hold gainful employment , and certainly not in any office or financial environment. Try this, children: send e-mail to the CTO of somewhere like Goldman Sachs, and ask him when he will be finishing migrating all of the analysts from Excel to OOo. At least you might entertain him for a minute or two.
Either that, or keep masturbating over your pseudo-communist ideals and the silly idea that you're revolutionizing not only office applications, but are the forefront of a fundamental shift in human society. - yoshitomi, on 10/12/2007, -11/+16This is not an argument, idiot. Act like an adult and stop being so defensive.
But thank you for showing me that. I, unlike you, have the maturity to admit that I didn't know something. - SirBotchness, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Bottom line Google's office suite sucks in comparison to anything else on the market, ESPECIALLY MS office. Argue it all you want, it doesn't have a 1/10 of the functionality of Office. Plus you have to have an internet connection to use it. I'll stick to office, i'm sure its cool, but it isn't even close.
- davidrools, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8@richestorags
have you even used linux? i'm assuming you haven't because once it's set up, it's as easy to use and configure as windows. it can be tricky to get some hardware configurations set up, but that's what an OEM like dell does with windows. Most people would be just as clueless if they had to install and configure their own windows installation from scratch.
But back on topic. I dont like Microsoft but Office is a good piece of software. For me, Google docs is convenient for docs on the go. Corel WP Office is also a good alternative to MS Office. and, of course, once you've been using Word/Office for years, it's gonna be a little bit difficult and frustrating to switch to any other suite that's not an exact copy. That frustration will generally make you swear against the alternative, unless you actually take the time to get comfy with it. - Karmalary, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Check out the OOo GNU Lesser General Public License at http://www.openoffice.org/licenses/lgpl_license.html You are NOT selling OOo, just the media (computer hard disk) that it is installed on. What's more, you can even modify the code as long as you make the source public. At least that's how I understand it. If I am missing something please enlighten me.
- KIERANMULLEN, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7This article lacks details and could use a comparison gride along with including Openoffice in there as well. :-)
KieranMullen - spidoman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+52007 made the powers of yester-year incredibly easy to use. Office 2007 is simply and easily the best office product out now by leaps and bounds. It's hard to get a gamer like myself to gush over an office product, but it's just that good.
- eonblue, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Until google has the little square box at the bottom right hand corner of their boxs google spreadsheet will not be worth using.
- ronaldst, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Still waiting for IMAP.
- mobilehavoc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Go use Office 2007 - you can download a fully functioning trial from Microsoft right now if you don't have it - then re-read this article and try hard not to laugh.
- maseone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3i can't wait for google's apps to not be hosted by google's servers effectively making all content on these servers theirs
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7schestowitz's replies get kind of creepy after a while.
- grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Like it or not, Google docs can not touch Office 2007. Sure it is great for the odd document here or there, and really useful if someone emails you a word doc and you can edit and reply even if your machine does not have office or oo installed, but businesses kinda like the idea of macros, footers and some other features offered by Office. I see oo as having a higher chance of being adopted.
- pasca, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Why does everyone have to hate Microsoft so much? If Windows wasn't on 98% of all computers where would we be? No one wants to think about how much they have accomplished.
I also agree with some above posts that I would rather not leave my sensitive documents on google's server, heck I don't want me in-sensitive documents on google's server. If I want to make my docs open to other people I'll post them on my own website. And if I want to have my documents for myself where ever I go I'll put them on a flash drive.
HD's are so cheap and large now, why do people think storing their info on-line is the way to go? Why is one of google's biggest reasons to not use MS office is "no installation needed"? Who cares it takes less than 10min and you only have to do it once. - szembek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Not a ***** "Tech Deal".
- limejuice, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2MS Office is good,and if you're company pays for it, that go ahead and use it.
But OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org) works just as well as MS Office for most tasks (some says it's even better) and it's free!
I think if Dell and other OEMs gave consumers the choice of productivity suite other than MSWord ($79) MS Word&Excel ($149) and MS Word&Excel&Powerpoint ($279), you would see more people select OpenOffice (MS Word/Excel/Powerpoint equivalent) $0. Of course, MS is probably paying Dell with a slush fund of marketing $$ just like Intel did when Dell was using Intel chips exclusively, so Dell has little incentive to educate it's customers on this topic.
I have personally educated 10 or so family and friends and about half have switched to OpenOffice, usually when they were buying a new
computer. For most consumers, there is almost no difference between MS Office and OpenOffice, so why pay Microsoft an extra $79+?
Anyway, people are spending most of their time in their browser and email client. People are more likely to be writing a letter in gmail than
writing a letter in MSWord. - mdalan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A technical bit -- the doubling strategy is a martingale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(probability_theory)
- cryptoz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3By "rules", do you mean law?
- judsond, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Right, and for people like that Docs is probably great. I use docs! My family was trying to decide what we were going to have for christmas dinner, and we all used it to come up with the menu. That doesn't mean I can start using at work though where we have a pool of 20 transciptionists, and word is integrated with at least 2 other 3rd party apps...
- maseone, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I agree. But what happens when the product you want doesn't exist!? doh, guess we have to make it ourselves.
It would be nice if there was an app like Google's, that was installable on your own server. I hate the idea of storing MY content on THEIR server - effectively making it THEIR content. WTF. Was that really worth free????? ***** that, I'd rather pirate office. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I agree that it is not comparable.Each has its own pros and cons.
Infact, you can carry an office suite very similar to MS Word,MS Excel,MS Powerpoint etc. (that is free as well!!!) on your iPod, portable hard drive, USB thumbdrive or any other portable media? How? Using Portable OpenOffice.org - http://indyank.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-to-carry-office-suite-in-portable.html
So whatever be the product,whether it be from Microsoft or Google or Digg or any other company you may name - use it for their pros and the end user will always be the winner. - verifex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2But if it was just a matter of using what is best to get the job done then nobody could exclaim that THEIR product is the best, and we all know that the consumer only wants to be told what is best; the consumer doesn't have time for nuances and complexity!
- tmiller51, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I mainly use Google docs for helping me remember things. For example, if I think of a brilliant idea for a new flavor of ice cream while I'm at work, I'll point my browser to Google docs and type it in. When I get home that night or whenever I can go back and access it. I do the same thing with email sometimes, but Google docs keeps it all in one convenient place.
- CarzorStelatis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1DAMN digg and its screwed-up replies. Bury please.
- blakholephysics, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I think that competition between free, open source, and commercial programs is great. If I'm going to spend some hard earned money on a commercial product, it should have what I need it to have. If the open source community can get it done more efficiently, power to them. It sets a bar for quality, much like what gmail did with web based e-mail.
Competition is great for the tech world. - judsond, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I dunno, it's useful for some things, mainly collaboration. I think if you're planning on sharing a document then it's pretty nice, but for most business uses it's not quite there yet.
- hlee1981, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I tried out Office 2007 a few months ago via the free trial, and I must admit that the redesigned GUI for the menus is amazing (though it may take some getting used to if I decide to install and use it again in the future). It seems like the web-based apps have its purposes to serve, among which is generating or editing files when on-the-go without need of an office suite installed on a machine as long as one has decent net access.
Question: How would you rate the ajaxx (http://us.ajax13.com/) apps versus Google's? Please note that the apps at the us.ajax13.com require access via Firefox. - thejokker, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5i cant wait for a powerpoint type program to join google docs.
- davidrools, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3blackholephysics:
YOU'RE still retarded ;) - CarzorStelatis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1MS Office isn't actually all that expensive for most people, who will either:
a) Get their employer to buy it for them
b) Get the ultra-cheap student version (since even school kids qualify, parents just register the software in the child's name)
There are arguments to be had for OOo (cross-platform, ODT compliance, etc.) as well as MSO (Ribbon GUI, familiarity etc.) and which you choose depends on your needs and which you enjoy using most (few people will ever use the advanced features of MSO _or_ OOo, so enjoyment is the only real factor). - dr3d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1.. for Google to examine, index and cross-reference everything I write !
- dysonlu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm actually surprised but relieved that, based on the comments here, most people agree that Google's office apps just suck and are essentially useless for serious users. It seems here there are reasonable people, not like at Slashdot, where I visit from time to time. Over there, it sounded like Google's office apps were the best things since sliced bread. Slashdot must be the Google temple or something.
- Subcranium, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2My typewriter double-spaced. Just hit return twice.
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