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128 Comments
- coasterswim, on 10/12/2007, -20/+97How is copying PowerPoint brilliant?
- nipterink, on 10/12/2007, -4/+70Office is probably one of Microsoft's strongest points. Best of luck to google.
- snakesonasam, on 10/12/2007, -6/+53great now i can make stick figure animations in school using google!!
- lingfield, on 10/12/2007, -5/+42"they already have Word and Excel covered"
no
no they dont
not even close - teh_toaster, on 10/12/2007, -18/+53I never use Google Docs or Spreadsheets, does anybody else?
- vafada, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27why is he being dugg down?
has anyone really tried google docs? i just tried it last weekend to update my resume since i liked the idea where i can edit it anywhere but it's such a pain to edit the document using google docs at one point i was editing HTML code just to fix the formatting.
I ended up going back to OpenOffice to update my resume.
Google Doc is a nice idea... but it doesn't come close to MS Word. - jrbrewin, on 10/12/2007, -8/+33"Microsoft users rarely have a choice. (mostly due to lack of tech savvy - they use what they get)"
could not disagree more.
Microsoft users tend to use it because they get the products, either through work, educational institutions, or oem. Very few mainstream users want to swap away from these expensive products because a) they're the most commonly used, and b) for the most part they're good (that's generally how something becomes the most commonly used). The people that you call 'tech savvy' users are the ones that don't want fork out the cash for microsoft products, or rip them off. Office 2007 is a great case in point. Universally received as a brilliant re-vamp to an old, confusing product. Shame then that google, open office, etc are going after copying, and as this article claims ' cloning ', old versions of microsoft's office suite. In google's case the functionality of the individual applications really really leaves a lot to be desired, and for most the online aspect functions as a novelty that gets old quick.
It's nice that google are buying in these online apps, and integrating them, but please. Lets see some innovation OTHER THAN puttin offline apps online.
yes, i bad mouthed the big G. let the -diggs commence. :D - cliffzdude, on 10/12/2007, -6/+27I use google docs all the time, for personal use. Its great to access my docs from home or work. But...
I. WILL. NOT. DEPEND. UPON. CONNECTIVITY. TO. GOOGLE. FOR. MY. BUSINESS.
At work we have a dozen remote locations. I store all said remote locations DLS/CableModem/T1 info on a spreadsheet. Now, what the ***** do I do if our pipe to the internets dies and I want to call said pipe supplier's tech support? MAJOR ***** --- DOH!!!!!
Then comes going into a disparate company for a meeting, a power point(esque) presentation is called for. No problem, every company has a wide open WiFi WAP that works ALWAYS, right??? WRONG!
Now, if Google would give me a local client that would automatically synchronize between a local account and google docs AND perform as a fully functional local-disk-installed Office Suite? Could they? Would they dare? Can we expect such brilliance? If they did, if they do, THEN they may have something to talk about. - statix, on 10/12/2007, -6/+25ha! they may have Word and Excel covered, but wait till try taking on Outlook! they'll never be able to match the flexibility and speed of.... oh wait...
- joe90210, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19"completing their basic office suite"
extreme emphasis on the word "basic" - sublimemm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14i love reading the same 4 comments over and over again.
- thespace2, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17(they already have Word and Excel covered) ROTFLMAO!!! What a TOTAL joke, does anyone use writely?!??!?!? I mean seriously, why is this a big deal, these apps completely suck even though they are freeeeee, they're still not very user-friendly.
- jrbrewin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I think he was suggesting, that although the building blocks are there for a suite of apps that you could call a microsoft office competitor, the functionality is not. Thusly, it's not really in competition with microsoft office.
no need to get all.. as you say.. ass hatt-y, on him for your misunderstanding. - planksconstant, on 10/12/2007, -6/+17just use open office. its free, and you don't need an internet connection to use it.
http://www.openoffice.org/ - Mountaineer1024, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16Because no sites ever create content online and provide a download for you.
- IvanB, on 10/12/2007, -25/+35They are not copying. They are just taking an idea that is out there, and they make it AWESOME. ;)
- itwasthursday, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I use it from time to time. It is a fair enough collaborating tool that allows simultaneous multi-user editing. However, I still find myself resorting to MS when formatting errors arise in Google Docs; it happens often @_@
- Zach978, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11I use it for a group paper for school. It is just a basic WYSIWYG HTML editor that allows multiple people edit a doc...but it sucks, it needs lots of work IMO.
Would be nice if basic things like page numbers, margins, headers, footers, etc. But it's just an HTML editor so there is no such thing as a "page". - Inqu, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Hypocrisy at it's best.
I bet the same people that bash Microsoft for copying features of other programs are praising the Big G for copying Microsoft's programs, albeit very poorly. - trollick, on 10/12/2007, -7/+15Because wherever you have to do your presentation you are guaranteed to have internet connection. Always.
- wiihuck, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9@planksconstant
she said she's on a mac. send her over to
www.neooffice.org
no need to get X11 invovled... - nodong, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@econoar
Online operating system of what? An online computer?
They're intending to provide all your applications online so all you need is a browser that would operate on any operating system without the need for local storage. - MioTheGreat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"ha! they may have Word and Excel covered, but wait till try taking on Outlook! they'll never be able to match the flexibility and speed of.... oh wait..."
Hey. If gmail supported IMAP, I'd be using Outlook 2007 a lot. - Evildudetx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7If it wasn't web based, it might matter.
- narduk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Is it immoral for me to click the ads for $0.99 Office at the top of this story? Is wasting scammers money immoral?
- BLACKEAGLE, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5another google product thats so half assed i will never use it
- shawnanigans, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It's great if you don't need to use those new fangled pages I keep hearing about.
- Subcranium, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Wake me up when the spreadsheet has charts.
- MikeWanDo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Google's great and all but it's not the end-all-be-all some people make it out to be. A monopoly on the search market I can believe. Seriously competing with Microsoft for an office suite, especially an online one, not so believable (read as not so likely to be a competitor). Honestly I don't want to have to open my web browser to type up a document, make a spreadsheet, or PowerPoint presentation. Google might be making an office suite and as someone suggested even an online OS (hard to believe) but I don't see this as being an overwhelming success for Google. G-mail's great sure but there are plenty of other e-mail providers which people use. Could G-mail be better? Yes, and I believe that Google should focus on improving their existing online apps to make them *better* than anything similar, not just different.
Besides free alternatives to MS Office already exist (openoffice.org is the one I use but there are plenty of other ones out there). - mayonaise, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I use them from time to time. So far, they lack a lot of the sophistication and smooth operation that comes with a standard desktop app. Don't get me wrong - they work well, get the job done (for the most part), and don't suffer from any blatant bugs. But they lack plenty of functionality/features and are a little quirky to use, particularly when importing Microsoft Office files.
There's one company that has all of these products already (and more), and they're a lot more finished and polished than Google's Apps, IMO. I believe this has been on Digg before:
http://zoho.com/ - chriswo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Tried to use the spreadsheets...got all my data into it and then said "let's do a bar chart." Doesn't look like it does charts, which makes it amost useless for what I use spreadshets for. What is the point of a spreadsheet that doesn't do charts?
- jrbrewin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5so's notepad.exe... or edit.com (the dos app, not the website)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+10 str3ama...unfair competition? They are not going to achieve ANY market share in office suites with any of their web based services. So how is that unfair competition?
jeremy..yeh, Google is just starting. But aside fomr search and ad sense, they have shown that they CAN'T compete with established companies in any other product/service. MAps, Gmail, Gtalk, video...all are VERY minor players to their competitors. Not a threat in ANY way, shape or form. - insomnislacker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Ah, very good PR, my Google employee. You will get an extra free foot rub this week.
- econoar, on 10/12/2007, -11/+15I'd bet that they are building this all up for a future shot at an online Operating System using all of their tools.
- TimTheSloth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Whenever I use Powerpoint I feel like I'm back on Windows 95, that program needs a major feature and functionality overhaul. I'd like to think Google will make their clone a little more intuitive but their current aps don't leave me much hope (ie. thanks for letting me view a pdf file without the images in it and with the format all messed up).
- s3rgi0, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8@coasterswim
It's brilliant because google is taking widely used applications that most people pay for and turning them into free web-based ones. - oepapel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"at one point i was editing HTML code just to fix the formatting"
History is repeating itself. Back in the day, it was editing in "reveal codes" mode in Wordperfect. Now it's editing HTML code in an online app. People give Word a hard ride because it's an easy target but i can't remember ever having to resort to this kind of hacking to work around defects in the product. - Raidenwolf, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Since some people had to make this a Microsoft / Google battle here is my 2 cents
Wow so people that use MS Office are stupid!! When we get audited by FDIC I will tell them that MS office is for stupid people so we will use Google Office instead (that will make for a fun week)
Then they will want to ream me for possibly exposing our company to cross-site scripting. And then they would want an NDA signed by Google stating they would not in any case look at our data, which would never happen.
Just because google office works brilliantly in one situation it does not necessarily lend itself to all situations. Sometimes it is easier just to go with Microsoft products and just prove you are keeping up with MS patches. Like the old IT saying goes "No one ever got fired for buying a Cisco" Well same goes for Microsoft. It might sound unfair but that's the real world of IT that I have been exposed to for the last 15 years. - conradovina, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Google will not release such a product. They want your information on their servers.
- sharkbaitbobby, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5OK, this is really annoying me, people complaining Google Docs & Spreadsheets isn't good enough. Well, then you have more advanced needs. Google Docs & Spreadsheets is definitely enough for a large percent of the population, myself included. If it's not good enough, try something else, including paying for MS Office or the like. (like Open Office for free)
Same with GIMP vs. Photoshop. If your profession requires advanced image editing, then the GIMP is not for you. End of story. No need to complain "it doesn't do this" or "it doesn't do that." It's free, and it can save a lot of people from having to pay for Photoshop.
There are plenty of these. Linux doesn't support your required program? Then Linux is not for you. Just hope someday your required application or alternative will someday work on Linux.
Sorry if I'm annoying, but this has really been annoying me. Have an argument? Go ahead, say it. I'd love to get in an argument on Digg. - StarManta, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Schmidt also said that _they’re_ office suite...."
TechCrunch, you have lost all respect from me. - diggn_it, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2One question:
people seem to be sure of the fact that this product will try to compete against microsoft. While this may have been true for docs, where people could save what they wrote as an RTF or other non microsoft format, and even if they did use .doc, almost every office application can read it. However, with this product, what are they going to allow you to save the file to? Probably powerpoint, which in this case has a monopoly on presentation applications (not including keynote). So because people will actually need power point to open these presentations, how is google competing against microsoft here? And were they ever really competing at all? I mean if you have to have the app to open the file you just made online, then why wouldn't you just use that app in the first place?
Any answers to this ramble will be appreciated. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2google = search, gmail................411?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Spreadsheets is pretty darn slow right now. I think it's still in Beta though? Maybe once it gets out of Beta testing they'll have it sped up a bit.
- Gzero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I only even know what 2 of those actually do, Most people only use word, office, and excel (and maybe outlook).
- surfing, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4shinramen, I think they will move into the coffee shop business next: GooBux or maybe Stargle
- MikeWanDo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I don't think they're not 'good enough.' It's just that I think instead of all these things that don't reach their potential because Google moves on to another app should be focused on more. Quality vs. quantity. What if Google Docs just had better, more innovative, cooler, more useful features than MS Word. Then a slightly larger than minute part of internet users would use it. As it is, even less than a minute part of internet users, use it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2powerpoint has caused more boredom than cricket and curling put together!
- Fabozz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Yeah, as long as you don't mind a column of used-car ads on the right edge of all your slides about Abraham Lincoln.
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