Google brings Writely and Spreadsheets together
Summary: Docs & Spreadsheets spices up the Web productivity space, but Google insists it's not gunning for the desktop
Google dived further into the Web-based productivity-applications market by offering a new product that combines its online word-processing and spreadsheet programs.
The company launched a beta version of Google Docs & Spreadsheets on Wednesday. The free program lets people create, manage and share documents and spreadsheets on the Web.
The program enables people to collaborate online in real time, use a variety of file formats for importing and exporting, and publish documents and spreadsheets on a Web page or blog.
Google is not targeting the desktop productivity suite market place that Microsoft dominates with Office, despite speculation to the contrary, said Jonathan Rochelle, Google Docs & Spreadsheets product manager.
"It made sense to combine these products and people were asking for that," he said. "It doesn't change our strategy. This is complementary to desktop products... and lacks certain advanced features [of desktop products]".
Starting with email, Google has been launching Web-based services and software in a move seen by many as encroaching on Microsoft's turf. Microsoft has responded by revamping its business to focus on Web services under the Windows Live and Office Live monikers.
Google acquired the online word-processing application Writely in March and launched Google Spreadsheets in June. Google recently opened Writely up to the public.
Google also sells a product to corporations and organisations, which they can offer their employees and members for free, called Google Apps for Your Domain. It ties together Web-based email, calendar, chat and Web page publishing.
Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.
Talkback
Google Docs and Spreadsheets realistic target market... not the enterprise.
Google Docs and Spreadsheets is a great collaboration tool. I can see it making a huge impact. However, I see this impact being for more simple collaboration needs. Students will probably use it more than any other group. It seems great for sending homework to yourself, working on assignments on various computers (in a library, computer lab, or other public computer labs common to academic campuses), and even for small companies with very simple collaboration needs.
I do not, however, see this solution being implemented for large-scale collaboration. It lacks high-level database structuring, key reporting features, certain access control privilege settings, advanced search and are necessary for it to become a complete enterprise business solution. I had never heard of Google Apps before reading this article. I can only think of one application that has all these features; it could be called