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Writely Buy Hints at Google Office

By Nate Mook, BetaNews

March 9, 2006, 5:07 PM

Google on Thursday confirmed what many have been speculating since Monday: the search giant has purchased yet another Web 2.0 darling by the name of Writely. Writely serves as a Web based word processor with sharing and collaboration features. But does this really mean Google Office is near?

Writely was launched into beta in August 2005 by start Upstartle. The service quickly gained attention for its ability to bring advanced editing features directly into the Web browser through the use of advanced scripting and AJAX.

Features of the service include the ability for multiple people to work on a document in real time, secure storage that saves a document every 10 seconds, and an easy to use interface that mimics a desktop client without the hassle of a download.

Writely's developers commented on the Google purchase in a blog posting Thursday, promising to keep the service reliable and secure. There are no plans to add Google advertising to the site, the team says.

"Coming to Google will eventually give us a leg up on getting things done that we just haven't been able to with our tiny team. But this will take time - our team isn't going to grow exponentially overnight - so please don't hound us with feature requests any more than you have been already!"

The acquisition has already sparked talk of Google planning to build a Web-based office suite. In addition, screenshots of a calendar service, currently in closed testing at Google, surfaced earlier this week.

"I've been blogging for a long time that Google will have an office suite by the end of 2006, and today they added a word processor to their email and calendar offerings," commented AOL executive Jason Calacanis. "After the Office-killer is completed they will launch the OS."

Venture capitalist Michael Arrington seemed to agree with that assessment in a posting to the TechCrunch Web log.

"This signals two things: a confirmation of Google's desire to hit Microsoft hard and attack their largest revenue product, and that they will do this at least partially through acquisition rather than building the office suite entirely in-house," he commented. "When, if ever, will Microsoft respond with their own online versions of the Office products?"

While Writely is transitioning to Google's servers the company is not accepting any new registrations. However, users can sign up to be notified when the Writely beta becomes publicly available once again.

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By kingkhearts

posted Jul 18, 2006 - 2:49 PM

Thought I'd hunt down an article on this and put my 2 cents in. Even if it is old.

I believe Google is taking a more Direct Web Based Stance then Office ever can or will. GMail is just begging to become POP3/SMTP and perhaps IMAP Online. I also find Writely is much easier to use in the Flock Web Browser due to well, Flocks Features. Also even if the Google Toolbar wasn't written for Flock don't let that fool you. It works Fine.

Spreadsheets wasn't aimed at Offices it was aimed at people with basic spreadsheet needs. Also in the Equation is Blogger. It is possible to Blog from Writely though I'm having Trouble Connecting my Blogger account I have seen someone else do it and I'm just lazy. :P

You have to give Google Credit where Credit is due. And the Credit goes to....Writely and Blogger before they were bought. :P But Google always adds its charm to it. :D

Now maybe I can find an up to date article to comment on somewhere. -_-

Score: 0

By Natanael_L

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 8:17 AM

F*** my school!!! When I click on the links, there´s a message saying "Request blocked by WebBlocker"!!!!!
AAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Score: 0

By anmol.2k4

posted Mar 13, 2006 - 8:07 AM

try hideip(srch in google) , i think it might help

Score: 0

By cranbers

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 10:37 PM

Wow, now that would be one cool product. Imagine being at work doing a 1200 page document. Then going to your work laptop on the plane, logging into a site and right back to work. Then imagine coming home to your computer and a macro virus completely destroyed every word document on your desktop. Then you just remembered, "oh yeah my work is saved on google's servers" its still there, and in perfect condition. As for all my 10 years of word docs at home. R.I.P.

Add to that, for every users of their free product, Microsoft has lost a potential 400 dollars. the days of the obscene cash cows for Microsoft will finally be numbered, thank god for google!

Score: 0

By Jedite

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 1:31 PM

Wow im amazed that only 1 person in this 23 comment thread has mentioned this.

What company would trust a 3rd party to store their documents?

lets be realistic here people, this whole thing only really works for home users. No Corporation or bussiness would ever trust a third party with their confidential documents.

Even in the case of homeusers, WHO WOULD TRUST a 3rd party. I sure as hell wouldn't trust Google,MS or anyone else to store my documents on their servers. Financial statements, personal letters, ect. why the heck risk it?

Score: 0

By johnus

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 1:58 PM

Who would trust a 3rd party for file storage? A lot of companies... ENCRYPTION. It's not very likely someone is going to *try* take the time to *try* to crack a 4,096-bit key (which is what I use. Overkill, yes. But eh. :)

It's a lot easier (and CHEAPER) to implement an outsourced infrastructure for data backup and temporary storage while keeping everything secure using say, an encrypted VPN and streaming on-the-fly file encryption, than find a few locations around the country and set up your own servers and network to provide a safe haven for your documents. Redundancy is your friend.

EDIT: Damnit Reap, you beat me to it. :p

Score: 0

By spiked

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 7:10 PM

Your point is only valid for concepts like GDrive where you are using Google for file storage. Writely (the topic of this article, in case you have forgotten) is a web-based app where the document is stored EXCLUSIVELY on the web site from the very beginning. The web site is the app itself, not merely a storage facility for your own app.

Therefore, you don't have any opportunity to encyrpt your document before storing it. The only way to encrypt it would if Writely offered an encryption function built into the web site, but of course they "could" keep a back door. I'm not saying they would, but if we start with the assumption that you don't trust them 100% (which is the reason you were going to encrypt with your 4,096-bit key) then you definitely wouldn't rely upon their own encryption.

Score: 0

By Reap_r

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 1:57 PM

I am not sure what industry you are talking about but it is quite common for this to take place.

Here are a few examples of both digital and hardcopy:
Many companies (title companies especially) use 3rd parties to store their files (physical files) and these include their customers personal details.
Some Morgtage companies use hosted browser or thin client based applications that externally host almost all of their data (including sensitive customer details).
http://www.elliemae.com/..._encompass_anywhere.asp
Many organizations (some government) use Hosted Exchange email and/or hosted sharepoint portal which store their data at a 3rd party data center.
Almost all smaller companies have their email hosted by their ISP or web host.

This is only a few examples of this, but the practice is far from uncommon.

Your paranoia is understandable and even to be applauded, but in the end the dollar is what drives most businesses.

Score: 0

By ds0934

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 9:13 AM

Bring it on! Bring it all on! Competition is GOOD. Competition is KING. If it weren't for FireFox, there wouldn't be IE7 -- PERIOD. If not for Google, there'd be no "Live" crap at all. None, Zip, Zilch. Without competition, MS would stagnate, as would everyone else. And besides, if there was only one product in each market, what would everyone do with their time normally spent on bashing other products?

Score: 0

By cranbers

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 10:28 PM

In regards to the article, I pray and hope Google comes out with a office product, it's all about getting rid of the blood cash flow to the fat lazy giant which is MS.

In regards to your comment, why do I get the impression there are only a hand ful of people like us ds0934. Because I would say you read my mind. Also I don't get why there are people out there that actually defend MS. They have to have ms stock or something although it's not exactly a hot buy. Why defend them? Because you like to defend a company that did a few good things and about a mile and a half long list of ver bad evil things? Think about it.

Score: 0

By asellus

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 2:05 AM

Writely as it is today doesn't really works with dial-up connections. Google will do well if they can make Writely to work with dial-ups.

Score: 0

By kjnangre

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 10:14 AM

Why on Earth would they spend time to make their software work with obsolete technology??

Score: 0

By wincement

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 12:18 PM

Because dialup still accounts for the majority of U.S. Internet users. The U.S. is way behind the curve for Internet connection speed.

Score: 0

By DigitalSin

edited Mar 13, 2006 - 3:20 PM

Actually broadband has surpassed the 65% marker in the USA.

Update: Found a more credible report below, apparently 65% is very optimistic

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Mar 13, 2006 - 12:54 AM

Hmmm... I would be interested to see if that statistic included commercial accounts.

I'm having difficulty believing that 65% of home users are on broadband.

If possible, could you provide a link to where you found that?

Score: 0

By DigitalSin

edited Mar 13, 2006 - 3:18 PM

Here's one I just came across, not sure if it includes commercial accounts or not. I couldn't find the original link where it mentioned about 67% as of Jan '06. This report suggests only about 45% are broadband. Honestly this report looks more credible than the one I had found when I originally posted :P

http://www.parksassociat.../2006/nat-scan_pr1.html

Score: 0

By pompombali

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 1:50 AM

I always wonder why guys here going on top of MS but still using it. Waiting for Google to come out with cheap no-nonsense apps what's the deal. Google is like ToysRus no more no less...

Score: 0

By goodpasture

edited Mar 9, 2006 - 11:14 PM

Here's my take on the future- They buy, build, and implement an completely browser based online office suite (which can be created, opened, edited from anything and anywhere BTW) all integrated together with GMAIL, GDRIVE, LIGHTHOUSE, ETC... Then they brink out a google OS that ties all this together and has it all "built right in" and THEN makes a commitment with Dell or Gateway or Lenova to build $100 or even free computers with ram (google OS hard coded), no hard drive (that's what gdrive is people!) , and a network interface to get you all you need in the land of Google!!! What do you think? JG

Score: 0

By Reap_r

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 10:28 AM

I think you are partly right. I don't know about the timeframe and I don't think they will come out with a fully mature product. I think that they like testing the waters first. Google tends to not really compete directly as that is too expensive. They like to make their competitors less relevant by thinking outside the box (ie Google Pack).

I do agree that they will bundle (office, storage, mail, groupware, maybe even OS) but I think they will do it in phases that allow them to prove the viability of each aspect of what is really a radical departure from the PC (locally installed apps and files) architecture. What this really would be is a thin client on a massive scale open to the public.

I don't see it being right for everyone, but there are those that will love it. There are also those that will hate it and opt for the legacy PC. It would take 5-10 years for a real market penetration of this new architecture. After all, Google has a clearly superior search technolgy and a clean (mostly) uncluttered interface...and people are still using AOL, MSN, Yahoo, etc... to do their searches.

Also take into account that more than half of the users out there will not be making a move to broadband anytime soon so there are some real challenges to running this architecture.

All in all, this is a great thing to shake things up and force the industry to continue to grow. It may also start Microsoft thinking of how they can show that they still deserve to exist.

Score: 0

By kingkong316

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 11:55 AM

Half the users out there that aren't already using broadband won't be changing anytime soon. It is important to say the one's that arean't already on broadband. I agree but in 5 - 10 years time (I agree on that estimate) alot more people will be using broadband especially if other ISPs follow AOL and make Dial-Up the same price as Broadband. Thin clients will be great for those who just use e-mail/IM/Word processing. But there are still CPU and Graphic intense programs (Photoshop, High Quality games, etc) that will need a "legacy" PC. But they will need less hard drive space as they could transfer copies of all images/movies/documents to an online storage service.

Score: 0

By xyzcb1

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 8:15 AM

I think you are right on track, only light year away. Just look athe the upload speed for most broadband service, they hasn't increase much. ISP needs to match both upload and download and need to open up their access. The market is controll by a few big players, and customers are paying high price for it. If you compare our internet speed to Asia, they are paying fraction of what cost our, and speed is like 10 time faster.

Score: 0

By teken894

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 7:01 PM

TO solve the upload issue, or any ISP issue..lol free GOOG internet service w/ the GOOGOS comp

im sure by the time Google OS or anything like that comes about, today's speeds will be laughable at best

Score: 0

By Tokar

edited Mar 9, 2006 - 7:49 PM

I dont care about all this Google software.

Google OS? Google Office?

What would be the purpose of using this software if 99.99% of the internet world is using Windows and Microsoft Office?

Memo to google: Just keep your finances directed towards developments in the INTERNET world. You didn't get where you are today by developing a software product...

Score: 0

By the artist

posted Mar 9, 2006 - 8:26 PM

"What would be the purpose of using this software if 99.99% of the internet world is using Windows and Microsoft Office?"

What does the share have to do with Google's releases? If they accomplish their job better than the competition they'll take over the market, no matter how long it may take. Once both products are available, it's your choice (customers choice) what matters and has the latest word.

Score: 0

By GeorgeSantayana

posted Mar 9, 2006 - 8:23 PM

Isn't Writely in the "Internet world"? There's no client software to install. It's all in the browser.

Score: 0

By bostonma

posted Mar 9, 2006 - 8:18 PM

Google products are user-friendly, useful, and
work!
I'm delighted by every new release.
As long as they keep things up to their name and reputation, they'll go far (and give Microsoft a run).
Even if 100% of the world used Microsoft, the purpose of using Google software would be to switch to a more reliable, less-expensive and more user-considerate platform.
(It's Office compatible, so there is no compatibility issue.)

Score: 0

By ladylust

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 2:36 AM

Your kidding me right? I dont care how much money Google has (which they are losing every day in the stock market). Microsoft would smash Google in the OS world. Look at every other OS that came our way?

Yes, let me give up my Microsoft OS and go to a google version which .00001% of software, games and apps will work on. Even Linux would smash Google, and Linux has been in the game a very long time and can't hold a candle (command line and GOS versions) to how popular MS windows is. MS will be on top for a VERY long time. Google should stick to the internet.. Because sooner on later we wont use OS's anymore.. We will have terminals and our super broadband lines will deliver our OS - games - internet - apps, etc via internet connections.

Score: 0

By teken894

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 7:04 PM

The bigger they are (i.e. MICrosoft) the harder they fall..

they may be on top now..but falling out of the market whether it be Office or OS will be quick..maybe a matter of years

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 3:23 PM

Heh..

You fail to see their plan. 'Tis much more subtle than that.

Google search...
Google mail....
Google Desktop...
Google talk...
Google Calander...
Google Office...

Right there we have replaced everything 90% of the computer users in the world use their computers for.

Extend this now to an actual desktop. Make it look the same on all platforms, so that the user doesn't even have to know what OS they are using.

By making the choice of OS irrelevant, Google could easily make Windows obsolete.

(BTW: Google is using their own modified version of Ubuntu Linux in-house right now. It's very likely, if they *did* release an OS, that it would be Linux-based.)

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 3:59 PM

Thank you. I didn't want to have to explain that.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 4:08 PM

I just want to go on record as stating that I do not believe they are actually intent on doing this and that it *is* my belief that the fact that it looks as it does is simply a side-effect of their business model.

In other words:

Nevar.
Gonna.
Happen. :)

Score: 0

By wincement

edited Mar 11, 2006 - 2:20 PM

Of course. It's all pure speculation unless someone here happens to be part of the upper-management at Google.

But that speculation is a heck of a lot more plausible than Google writing their own OS.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Mar 11, 2006 - 10:18 PM

Oh, didn't I tell you? Last name's Brin, nice to meet ya. ;P

Score: 0

By Reap_r

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 10:54 AM

I think you need to watch Google's market strategy a little more closely. They know that you can't go head to head agains't Microsoft's OS juggernaut and win. There is just too much inertia there (software/hardware/oem contracts). The investment of capital needed to create sell a new platform to compete with ms for a hardware/local drive based OS would be HUGE. I think Google could do it, but they won't be direct like that. This is not a Brute Force company like Cisco.

They also know that if you provide something that works at a reasonable or free cost, people will use it. If you look at the apps you use every day and consider that if you could use an app that worked better and ran on a very inexpensive platform, you might consider it. I looked at the apps I use...firefox, thunderbird, Picasa, Gimp, pspad (notepad replacement), openoffice, ms office, OneNote, evernote, visio, smartdraw.

There is really only one set of applications that I use on a daily basis that that don't run natively on linux and I am sure would run on a google OS. That is Office and I don't think I would miss it much really because OpenOffice is thinner and cleaner.

That leaves games. I am not about to try to justify the cost of a high end PC for gaming. An Xbox is cheaper, or even lacking that, I could keep the game machine and just use the google box for all else, after all my kludgy old PC does not automatically synch my files to any machine I work on (even at the library).

Challenging MS in this way is certainly not hopeless and as MS makes their OS more bloated (Vista can benefit from up to 2 gig of ram I am told), a thin and useful thin client based machine sounds mighty attrative especially if i don't have to spend $2k every few years to keep my box current.

One more thing, and don't think that Google will miss this. If you offload the processing power to the server by using hosted apps, you can make a PC that is extremely small, light, inexpensive, and long lived (battery life). All it needs to have is a browser, battery, keyboard, cpu, dvd player, small amount of memory, network/wireless, and a display. Not like these laptops that will keep your cofee cup warm if you put it on top, last about 2 hours on battery...in fact this sounds better than the Origami hype to me.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 3:22 PM

Subtlety.

By the time most people realize what is going on, Google will have replaced what most people consider the Operating System.

The Desktop.

Mail, Office, Chat, Calender (They are currently beta testing CL2, an iCal compatible web-based shared Calendar), and search.

For a very large percentage of computer users, that *is* the OS. If they're all using Google anyway, the OS becomes irrelevant.

I think Google Desktop 3.0 is going to make the OS even more invisible to the user by hooking into things like error reporting and troubleshooting (Imagine getting an error and being directed, via Google Search, to the solution instead of having to call TS).

Now, are they going to write thier own OS? Doubtful. The support and development costs alone are staggering. Why should they, when every other OS out there works just fine as a backdrop to the GooglePC Experience?

Score: 0

By the artist

edited Mar 9, 2006 - 8:27 PM

Fully agree too.

Score: 0

By the artist

posted Mar 9, 2006 - 6:40 PM

Do you have an idea of what this could mean in a medium-long term? An office suite and then an OS by Google? That would play a big role in M$'s fall, but more important, it would give pc users more choices, and for sure, better ones.

Score: 0

By Tokar

posted Mar 10, 2006 - 7:53 AM

yeah your choices will be (if Google OS comes out):

stick with MS and have access to 80% of the software and games in this world
go with Linux and have access to 19% of the software and games in this world, with a good percentage of them being made both for linux and windows
go with Google OS and have access to 1% of software in this world...

great choices... :P

Score: 0

By teken894

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 7:08 PM

of all the software...90% is redundant

googleOS will come out when google has replaced all the essential/curcial software (Office, mail, maybe even a google game xD)

I would guess all the software would be internet based. internet-ware

Score: 0

By Deceasedlovedotcom

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 8:52 AM

yeah... you're an idiot.

If Google makes an OS do you honeslty think they will make it were barely any apps or games work? NO. They will find ways to allow all software and games to be downloaded and used perfectly within their pc's.

Google has made a name for themselves to make products that work for everyone. They will not make an OS that sucks... period.

I've watched Google grow from a search engine, to a power house that is gonna give MS a run for their money. People will switch from MS when Google OS is done... I can guarantee it.

Score: 0

By bostonma

posted Mar 9, 2006 - 8:19 PM

Fully agree!

Score: 0

By wincement

posted Mar 9, 2006 - 6:23 PM

Crazy. The rumors just might be true.

Score: 0

By bmwillett

edited Mar 10, 2006 - 11:05 AM

I think the biggest problem here is with companies trusting Google to store their document information. Most documentation is written by companies. I know my company would laugh if I suggested that we start writing our documentation with Google Office and storing the documenation up on their servers. Their Office Suite would have to give the ability to save documenation locally. Even then, companies would have to trust that they are not uploading any information. I think this concept of having to trust Google with your information applies to pretty much all their applications such as calenders and even gmail. The average end user might trust them a little more than companies while the bulk of the work is with the companies.

Score: 0

By canv15

posted Mar 13, 2006 - 11:25 AM

i think what is going to happend with that data is that google is going to have thier computers to read all that data and suggest ads to put when you go to your gdrive. like gmail. " computer reads your email and target it with ads". thats what i think.

Score: 0

By bmwillett

posted Mar 13, 2006 - 12:22 PM

Probably right but you are still asking alot of companies to trust that is all they are going to do with their information.

Score: 0

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