RSSGoogle Treads Further on Microsoft's Turf
By Ed Oswald | Published February 22, 2007, 11:20 AM
Although it has repeatedly denied it has any intention of taking on Microsoft Office, Google on Thursday introduced Google Apps Premier Edition, a fee-based version of its free Web-based word processing and spreadsheet applications for businesses.
For a $50 yearly fee per account, customers will receive the entire Google Apps package with additional business centric features, plus access to APIs, conference room scheduling for calendar, 10GB of e-mail storage, extended phone support, and mobile access to e-mail on BlackBerry devices.
"Already, companies big and small are talking about how this new version of Google Apps makes it easy to offer low-cost communication and collaboration tools to all their employees so they can get on with what they do best," lead software engineer Derek Parham said.
According to Google, nearly 100,000 businesses already have signed on to Google Apps, including several big-name companies such as Procter & Gamble, General Electric Corporation and Prudential who have been testing the business edition of the software.
The continued push of Google Apps also shows a difference in philosophy between the Mountain View, Calif. company and Microsoft. Google's forays into application developed have mainly fallen into the hosted application, or "software as a service" model.
Microsoft has also dabbled in that market with its Live set of services, but those offerings do not serve as Web-based versions of its desktop products for the most part.
Not everyone seems to be impressed with Google's efforts. JupiterResearch senior analyst David Card noted that most APIs are given away for free, and that the service overall is ad-supported.
"Mediocre, Web-based, for-fee word processors and spreadsheets are pretty dull. This really feels like a premium e-mail service to me," Card lamented. "And I thought Gmail killed those off."
However, noted pundit Om Malik seemed to disagree, calling it "an interesting chess game" between the two companies. He even seemed to suggest that Google making moves into Microsoft territory may have something to do with Redmond making moves into search.
"Redmond can use OS to become a reasonable force in search, thanks to the inertia of the masses who don't change default search engines," he said. "Google knows all that, and rightfully worries about it. It counters with an equally devilish move."
"The NY Times story reports Google’s Docs and Spreadsheets had 432,000 users in December, by Nielsen/NetRatings measure. The Times also quotes Microsoft as saying that Office has 450 million to 500 million users. Even if those numbers aren't totally accurate, I don’t think the Office needs to close up and go home just yet," remarked former Jupiter Research analyst-turned Microsoft evangelist Michael Gartenberg.
"Like all good things, Office will perhaps someday be replaced by something else but this isn’t the day and these aren't the products."
When the data pipe goes down in the average office like it tends to do on occasion, email and internet goes with it. Add the office suite to the mix and I guess it's just best to send everyone home for the day.
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So, without an internet connection or email, you're going to get how much work done with traditional office apps?
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Google's Apps is a joke so far. I mean, yea, the idea is nice, however it's a joke to use as a productive tool. $50/year/user is expensive for some toy. According to this article (http://www.forbes.com/ma...kets26.html?partner=rss), MS Office cost around $60-$120/user license. Why is anyone thinking about paying Google instead of MS for something that can be productive. With PDA and remote access everywhere, i don't see a point of using Google App as oppose to OO or MSO.
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The replacement kliller is Google, slowly, but surely its taking over where Microsft left off.. Did someone mention Monopoly?
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Just because a company is doing well does not make it a monopoly. Go read a book.
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I really cant see any BIG corporates trusting sensative or operational information to Google.
Nothing specifically against Google. Good on them for attempting to innovate, it's about time somebody stirred the pot.
IMO, and it's an "opinion" ... the best Web 2.0 app I've tried thus far, still in dev though I might add, is Yahoo! mail beta... loads of ads, yes I concede that, but functionality second to none.
Good things to come from the big three I reckon.
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I have never used Googles online apps but for free office software you can't beat open office!
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I've tried all of Googles online apps. The docs and spreadsheets apps lack horribly. I'd use OO before those anyday. Even dirt-simple XLS files won't open and display right in GSS. All this talk of Google putting a hurt to MS in the area of Office apps is way hyped and premature.
We have a test suite of document files required for MS-Office 2003 interop tests for our govt and mil clients. We have to run PDF, DWG, XLS, DOC, PPT, MPP and Visio files through it. The Google apps failed every single test. OO fails 5-10 percent of those.
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I can be harsh. My first experience with Google Documents:
Import resume: Formatting was completely lost. Not only that, but I saw no discernible method of even attempting to get the formatting anywhere near where I wanted it. Margins? Non existent control.
The web is nowhere near a serious platform for Office Productivity, unless you are talking about the smallest of businesses getting a foothold. And let's not even talk about availability. Google Mail was unavailable to me for an hour on Monday. It's not been the first time. Can you imagine if that was my bread and butter?
I don't think so.
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Online office software is in its infancy, so don't be too harsh on first judgment. Google Spreadsheets just added charting and you can now embed Docs & Spreadsheets into your domain. Best of all, it gets you off of Microsoft's proprietary OXML and .doc formats in favor of sharing files with greater ease and quick XML conversions using the OASIS OpenDocument (ODF) format, which is quickly becoming popular with sites like Alacos's Lettos online ODF conversion tool.
Anyone who casts online office suites as an argument against buying or having one on the desktop is missing the mark, and is fishing a red herring argument. Better to think of them as an extension of the desktop when you or your business need it, especially where Microsoft's Sharepoint services and Live Office are slow and lacking features under Office 2007 so far.
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