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Google Docs Aims At Microsoft Office Live 95

mikesd81 writes "Channel News reports that Google took an important step forward Monday in its rivalry with Microsoft Office Live, reporting that Google Docs will allow users to edit word processing documents offline. Google said users of its Google Docs word processing application can use Google Gears to save and then edit documents without being connected to the Internet. 'The offline capability will be limited to word processing documents, though the company plans to add it to spreadsheets and presentations in the future.'"
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Google Docs Aims At Microsoft Office Live

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  • iPhone (Score:1, Offtopic)

    Anyone know if this will work with the iPhone? It _sounds_ like it's a web application that can function even when not connected to the 'net so I could see it working but I'm not a programmer (and at work so I can't test it) so there might be some obvious element I'm missing. If it does work with the iPhone, allow me to say "cool!"
  • Rivalry? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @11:05AM (#22930790) Homepage Journal
    There's a rivalry? I need to share spreadsheets with many various clients and they always suggest Google Docs. Never once have I heard a person ask to share a document with Microsoft Office Live. And my clients are each in very different industries.

    Is there any real competition yet between the two in terms of user base?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by teknopurge ( 199509 )
      Where the other 99.99999% of the business world just emails the Word doc to the people that need it.

      You're right, there is no rivalry. OpenOffice is the only thing within striking distance of MS Office. Google Apps is a joke.

      Regards,
      • Re:Rivalry? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @11:27AM (#22930968)
        I love Google Docs. When I had to kick my three-timing wife to the curb we used a google spreadsheet to collect data about our assets, debts, insurance policies, etc. for the property settlement phase of our divorce -- and another to track child expenses for our shared custody arrangement. It's awesome. I didn't have to interact with her anymore than was strictly necessary. Thank you, Google.
        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Great that Google Docs was able to help in this way. I'm a Program Manager working with Google Docs, and I'd love to talk more about the way you were able to make use of Google Docs. Feel free to contact me here: docsprograms@google.com. Thanks again for sharing.
      • Re:Rivalry? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @11:39AM (#22931050)
        >>Google Apps is a joke

        Oh yeah? I bet you have not even tried it. No matter what Google haters and similar mods say, it is a very good online office application. In fact, I do not use MS Office any more (and have not even bought it with my latest pc) and guess what? I have not missed it at all, and in fact sharing it with others was never so easy. Sending docs by attachments? Not for me, anymore.

        Different people and organizations have different needs. Saying "Its a joke" is as good as saying "MS Office is a joke". It serves a particular segment of the market and it serves it pretty good, and its getting better.

        Now fuck off.
        • Re:Rivalry? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @11:50AM (#22931138) Journal
          It's a decent Office app. It's certainly no OO.org or Word, but for my particular needs, it's more than adequate. Being able to use it offline will make it much more useful.
        • I have not missed it at all, and in fact sharing it with others was never so easy

          I am sorry, but if you state this then you clearly do not work with complicated documents. I need a wordprocessor to write reports, my thesis, ... I need to implement large amounts of images into my docs. These images need captions. I need equations, footnotes and references in my doc, preferably with hyperlinks for easy online reading, ... This stuff is hard enough to accomplish in MSO (although feasible) but don't even try in OO and _certainly_ not in Google Writer. The only thing that really gets the

        • It's in my impression that Google Docs lacks many often-used features in Word or OOo Writer.

          Say, how do you write a numbered list like the following in Google Docs?

          1. Point one
          1.1. Point one point one
          1.1.1. Point one point one point one
          (I don't really know how I can emulate the indenting here but just imagine the above list items were properly indented)

          AFAIK, even simple things like the above are often impossible with Google Docs.
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by teknopurge ( 199509 )
          I debated whether to reply to this or not - but I'm wrapping up lunch so...

          I have tried it. Google Apps is a joke when compared to MS Office.

          That's fine that Google Docs meets the needs of many people - I think it's great when any software is useful. Just have the sense to not put it in the same division, league, or even planet as MS Office. For all the anti-MS arguments there are, they have some solid productivity software.

          In a knife-fight between (MS office+sharepoint+exchange) and (Google Apps beta v0.
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by LLKrisJ ( 1021777 )

        OpenOffice is the only thing within striking distance of MS Office

        And even then, it often leaves much to be desired. I honestly applaud the efforts to come up with an alternative to MS Office. Because although MS offers a lot of functionality with it's software (You can produce some nice, stylish docs, as long as they stay relatively small) it also contains some absolutely incomprehensible faults;

        1) Why the hell doesn't Outlook provide decent IMAP access??
        2) Why can't I copy my Word2007 equations to Powerpoint???
        3) What is up with that crap Master Document implementation

        • You forgot number 5 - the most important and incomprehensible one!

          5) Profit!!?
          • As far as I am concerned a company is allowed to make a reasonable profit if they offer me a good product in return. Paying software doesn't necessarily mean 'Evil'. It's features that I am interested in. An example: why still doesnt Thunderbird, after all these years, offer decent calendaring support? As far as I am concerned, MSO Outlook is a great, yet expensive scheduling tool but it's IMAP support (which I absolutely need) just stinks. On the other side we have the free Thunderbird which is great at h
            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              I have to concur here. Open source desperately needs a good email-calendaring solution. Give me something that uses normal protocols like IMAP, and I can not only kiss Outlook goodbye, but the hideous resource-eating monster Exchange. I could start moving towards Samba solutions and save $$$ on Microsoft's huge licensing costs.
              • Comment removed based on user account deletion
                • Have you tried Xandros server + Scalix?

                  Well no, and I don't intend to. The things you mention are similar in concept to what MS Server together with exchange probably offers.

                  The problem is that I want to do similar things with my personal calendar/mail, not just work related stuff. The funny thing is that one could almost do it, if only there would be some decent support for GCal in Thunderbird itself and not through some shaky 3rd party plugin. If this would be possible you would have full and powerfull access to your email all the time and sc

            • Whooosh. You must be new here.
      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @12:31PM (#22931516)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by SCHecklerX ( 229973 )
        A google apps appliance on the corporate LAN would be a huge win. Imagine how easy to support and scale it would be.
      • Yeah. When you want someone to run your hostile code, MS Word's run-at-the-user's privileges script execution engine is very convenient, and it can all be done under the cover of "look at this .. uh .. text. Yeah, text." How can Google ever match that? They're going to need to release some kind of special browser plug-in so that the authors of "documents" (i.e. software) can install their own malware on readers' machines.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Hyppy ( 74366 )
      An intelligent businesses from anywhere but the U.S. would avoid Google Docs or Microsoft Office Live or any of these web-based document solutions like the plague. The USAPATRIOT act is quite the liability, especially for businesses that must report any access of customer data by outside entities. A bit hard to do that when the access is done in secret, eh?
      • I only use Google Docs at work to share priority lists with clients. There's no interesting or critical information shared. I agree the PATRIOT act is a liability for anything else.
    • Nope, google docs allows editing, storage, and versioning of documents. Office Live only allows storage and check in/check out. Basecamp is a closer competitor to Office Live, in terms of features.
  • Is that someone throwing chairs? Why would news of Google letting you edit word processing documents anger someone that much?

    I don't get it.

    Will this also edit Star Office word processing docs?

    What? What do you mean "read the fucking article"?
  • by TheMeuge ( 645043 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @11:10AM (#22930838)
    Google is riding the wave of computer hardware commoditization into one where general computing is also a commodity. Google's approach here is exemplary because it shows that monetizing every aspect of the consumer's digital interactions (which is essentially the current model for computing/internet-based businesses in the U.S.) is not necessarily the key to maximizing one's profits. By providing basic services free of charge, Google gains a share of a market that wasn't traditionally its own, and thus gains billions of additional impressions for its ads. Furthermore, by leveraging its trusted name, Google can now reasonably expect a fair increase in its ad audience with every additional service it offers.

    This is a genius idea, which is an example of how forward thinking and good PR can bring in higher profits than unadulterated greed (yes, telecoms, I am looking at you). However, what this also means is that with its large cash purse, Google can continue to provide further services, channeling more and more monitor-watching eyes to its own webpages. Its purchase of Youtube provides ample evidence that Google won't be upset if you spend 100% of your computing time, on a Google-branded internet.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @11:51AM (#22931146)
      Interesting.

      By providing basic services free of charge, Google gains a share of a market that wasn't traditionally its own, and thus gains billions of additional impressions for its ads.

      I'd never really thought about it before, but the way you put it, this sure sounds a lot like "embrace, embrace, extinquish." Google gives stuff away for free (Microsoft bundles games, anti-spyware, anti-virus and browser to OS) to gain more ad impressions (gain more software market). Google won't be upset if you spend 100% of your computing time, on a Google-branded internet. Microsoft won't be upset if you spend 100% of your software budget on MS products.

      Although I use both of their services, I have no allegiance to MS or Google. It just seems like history repeating itself. We can only hope our new overlords are kinder and gentler. The one thing that spooks me a little is MS has never been in control or had access to the extreme amount of personal data Google does.
      • by moderatorrater ( 1095745 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @12:09PM (#22931274)

        this sure sounds a lot like "embrace, embrace, extinquish."
        Where's the "extinguish" for google? Microsoft destroyed opponents by gaining their market share and then killing compatibility, making it so that things that worked on other platforms worked for Windows, but the opposite wasn't true.

        Google's in significantly different markets and using different strategies. They're not pursuing marketing techniques to get market share, they get market share through having a superior product. When you use Google, you're not locked into using them all the time because of other considerations; there are no barriers to using yahoo instead.

        Their google docs don't use a proprietary format, they use everyone else's formats, including word, pdf and openoffice. This means that the barrier for moving from google docs to another system is only the hassle of transferring the files, not in the formats being incompatible. They're not practicing lock-in of any kind, which is the fundamental difference between Google and Microsoft at this point: Google's playing nice, Microsoft is playing however they can.

        So the comparison is dumb and inflammatory. Google's business model has been wholly different from the Microsoft model and (business-wise in the US) free of dirty tricks and underhanded maneuvers. Punish and condemn google for the bad things they've done, not for being the most successful software company to come around recently.
        • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          So the comparison is dumb and inflammatory. Google's business model has been wholly different from the Microsoft model

          Is it really? Can we agree that Google has a virtual monopoly on search? And a vitual monopoly with ads? The comparison is not between the business models. The comparison is between a dominant company getting outside its core business to gain market share for its core business. In and of itself, this is not a bad thing. Any smart company in their situation would do the same thing.

          You are ri

          • From a John Doe point of view, when it's all said and done as you said, you're right. Google will inevitably abuse its power (A minority think it already has).

            10 years after its birth, it has acted well enough to be liked by most people and that's something.

            Then again, most people liked microsoft 10 years after ITS birth.

            We'll have to wait and see.
  • I've been wondering for quite some time why the online/offline thing was such an issue. Currently I use foxmarks which syncs bookmarks automagically. I use autosync functions on my SideKick II all the time. Synchronization tools have been around for a long time.

    The only REAL problems is trusting the online storage with your data. As far as that goes it can be encrypted with better than 128bit encryption and keys remain local only if you like. I don't think that Google Docs is competition to MS Office, it's
    • Most people with decent IT can access their servers from anywhere. Even those with so-so IT can have a modicum of access in several ways (offline files, web access services) without needing Google. The thing is, anyone with nazis for IT who won't let in any outside access to their servers would have a stroke if they found you were storing data on an external machine.

      It seems useful for companies too small to have "real" IT and who don't care much about data security (corp secrets and such). For much of the
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Online / Offline isn't an issue.

      Most of the time.

      It's that 1% to 2% of the time, IE on an airplane, at the airport (without wifi) or when the ubiquitous high speed internet at home or at the office is mysteriously down due to a)The backhoe effect b)bad storms, flooding, hurricane, c) maintenance, d) ISP Messup, e)your modem gets hit by lightning e) gremlins

      That 2% of the time, which could be 10%, or 1%, really stinks because it never happens at a convenient time. Offline would be good then.

      My wife uses
      • (I know it's april 1st, but I really do have a wife)
        That's hilarious!!

        I'm looking into similar with a server at home as the sync point, then syncing that to Google et al online. Hoping to combine the sync mechanisms of several phone/pda types in the mix and have full familial synching even when the intarwebtubes are down... let the server sync it when they come back up.
        • As long as you actually enter all calendar data on Google Calendar, this is a top-notch solution, thanks to Google's support for ICS. My iCal, Outlook, my Verizon phone (using Verizon Wireless Access by Intellisync), and Lightning* all check the Google homebase for calendar updates. Depending on the service, the clients go haywire when I try to update calendars from the non-Google application, but it's pretty amazing that my calendar gets pushed to a bunch of devices, such that any one of them can be my cal

      • "Online / Offline isn't an issue.

        Most of the time."

        1. Not everyone lives in ubiquitous high speed internet land. Not even in the U.S. Even though we funded the interstate highway system and rural electric grid.

        2. Google might be a lot of people's darling, and some have nothing to hide. But it's not the place I'd store any confidential documents. Their company motto might be "do no evil", but odds are that *someone* there has done *something* evil at work.
  • Ponies? (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by wizzy403 ( 303479 )
    I heard there were ponies? Where are my ponies?? OMG THINK OF THE PONIES!!!
  • Opposite talk (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Vexorian ( 959249 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @11:16AM (#22930886)
    Didn't docs come before office live?
    • Maybe, but edlin came before vi/emacs but would you use that?

      Google Docs is horribly primitive. I use it for writing todo lists and notes which I can access from different locations. I haven't had it yet once successfully open a doc file I've been emailed.

      I see no reason to use it as a stand-alone application offline, unless they've put a far better version online in the past week or two. Which they need to if they're serious about online applications.
      • That's what I was wondering. It seems to me like it would make more sense to focus on adding an online component to say openoffice then to create yet another document editor. Especially one that's watered down (if what you say is true). Maybe merging a version control system with a decent editor so that the checking out part is transparent to the user. Hmm, that kinda sounds like a fun project.
    • Didn't docs come before office live?


      Even if that isn't true, I believe that all office live offered initial was basically a place to store and share Office documents. There was no functionality to actually create or edit Office documents.
  • Source Code (Score:3, Informative)

    by cbart387 ( 1192883 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @11:38AM (#22931044)
    For those that are interested, the source code can be downloaded from here [google.com]. Notice it's a BSD license.
  • by MarkWatson ( 189759 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @11:49AM (#22931126) Homepage
    I still use LaTex+OmniGraffle for serious writing and OpenOffice.org when customers use Microsoft document formats, but I find myself using Google Docs more for short notes, short papers, sharing writing with other GMail users, etc.

    The addition of Google Gears based local document storage over the next few weeks will not be a feature I ill need often, but it will be good to have.

    BTW, I use a utility tht you can find on the web (gdatacopier.py) to periodically back up all of my Google Docs - just in case.
  • Offline is nice, but can we have some of the basic functionality fixed? Like a way to display paragraphs and linebreaks differently, for example?
  • consortium needed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by suck_burners_rice ( 1258684 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @11:58AM (#22931196)
    Why isn't a consortium forming between Google, Apple, and OpenOffice.org to give all three office suites the capability to edit each others' documents with 100% formatting and content compatibility, and 100% support on Windows, Mac, Java, and X11 based *nix environments? Each one of these organizations is formidable by itself, able to fight Microsoft off a bit here, a bit there. In the end, though, they're each a 600 pound gorilla, and Microsoft is an 800 pound gorilla. But these three organizations together, a team weighing in at 1800 pounds, would crush Microsoft like an ant.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by nguy ( 1207026 )
      Why isn't a consortium forming between Google, Apple, and OpenOffice.org to give all three office suites the capability to edit each others' documents with 100% formatting and content compatibility,

      Google Docs is constrained by what browsers can do. They do attempt to support ODF as much as they can, but there are limits. Hopefully, things will get better with Firefox 3.

      Apple appears to have made a deliberate corporate decision to be incompatible with OpenOffice. If you submit a feature request for supp
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Apple appears to have made a deliberate corporate decision to be incompatible with OpenOffice.

        I disagree with this. Rather, I suspect Apple has not prioritized ODF and created their iWork applications based upon their own format for convenience. If Apple as a company was trying to be incompatible with OpenOffice they would not have added ODF support to TextEdit. I would venture to guess that Apple sees the business case for supporting import and export to MSOffice formats, but is as yet unconvinced about ODF and whether it will succeed in the marketplace. I hope that they understand that they can

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by nguy ( 1207026 )
          Anything that hurts Microsoft and weakens their monopoly influences, leads to a better market for Apple to compete in.

          Apple made a deal with Microsoft and they have Microsoft Office on their platform. That's something that helps them a lot in competing with open source desktop operating systems. Why would they want to lose that advantage by supporting ODF?

          They can also qualify as a vendor for purchases in the future that require ODF (as some government agencies are now moving towards)

          They can do that with
          • Apple made a deal with Microsoft and they have Microsoft Office on their platform. That's something that helps them a lot in competing with open source desktop operating systems. Why would they want to lose that advantage by supporting ODF?

            Apple doesn't really compete with OSS in the desktop space. It might in the future, but to date OSS does not have enough market share to count. Apple does compete with Microsoft and with Microsoft's customers. Microsoft has been leveraging their office suite to gain an advantage in other markets. Ceding the office suite market to MS hurts Apple's iWork sales. It hurts their computer sales too. MS having monopoly influence in the office suite market, but not leveraging it directly against Apple in the comp

            • by nguy ( 1207026 )
              Apple doesn't really compete with OSS in the desktop space.

              OSS is widely used on the desktop, probably more widely than Macintosh. You're confusing the desktop with the home market.

              Currently, I wouldn't recommend it.

              What does that have to do with anything?

              Except TextEdit has both read and write support for ODF.

              Well, hey, no need to buy iWork then, right? Don't make me laugh.

              The first reports of iWork in development were in 2003.

              Yes, and they could have adopted OpenOffice XML at the time, then moved to ODF
              • OSS is widely used on the desktop, probably more widely than Macintosh. You're confusing the desktop with the home market.

                While numbers are hard to calculate for OSS desktop OS's, I haven't seen numbers to support your assertion. That isn't too important though because you are misunderstanding the market distinctions. Apple doesn't sell desktop OS's. They use vertical bundling to bypass the desktop OS market and instead compete in the computer system market. OSS OS's have a very small market share pre-installed or even OS-less whiteboxes.

                What does that have to do with anything?

                It speaks to the viability of NeoOffice in professional use as a competitor to Apple'

                • by nguy ( 1207026 )
                  How about backing up some of your assertions with some facts or logic.

                  I have given you facts:

                  * Apple has a long history of deliberately incompatible formats and standards, showing that Apple believes incompatibilities to be in their commercial interest. There is no indication or reason that they are doing anything different for iWork.

                  * FOSS clearly is competing with Apple at universities and on corporate desktops, and any support they give that makes FOSS more viable in those markets would likely be a thre
      • Apple appears to have made a deliberate corporate decision to be incompatible with OpenOffice.

        Apple made a deal with Microsoft. Microsoft agreed to write an Intel version of Office, and to license MSXML to Apple for iWork. (I refuse to call it OOxml, that would be contributing to trademark infringement on Open Office). In return, Apple agreed not to support ODF in iWork.

        Notice how clever that was. Apple said they won't put ODF in iWork, but they never said that they wouldn't put ODF into TextEdit, whic

    • What Apple and OpenOffice do is negligible since they have virtually no relevance in the market MS Office dominates.

      Google and Apple both have the money and savvy to try to compete in the "serious business" world but it would cost them a fortune and they have no guarantee they can beat the fantastic MS Office teams. They are the best, afterall. Excel and Word 2k7 are amazingly powerful and elegant programs.
  • The page loads as quickly as it would have in 1994!
  • Hybridization (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF ( 813746 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @01:30PM (#22932122)

    I really think hybrid applications that are both traditional and Web apps are going to be the way of the future. Local applications don't allow you to edit from any machine, are not automatically kept up to date (payware), and don't allow developers to easily leverage ad revenue or subscriptions. They are not as simple for collaboration and publishing to the Web. They are not as easily targeted to all platforms because of lack of standardization for running applications across OS's

    Web apps are reliant upon a network connection, don't provide the security demanded by some use cases, and are not good at finding geographically close users. Performance is limited by network throughput and latency.

    Really in a free market the direction of development is almost certain to go to apps that connect to internet services or apps that are also internet servers. They both come down to the same thing, just differing in the emphasis on decentralization or centralization. Given that the network is the more common limiting factor today (especially in the US and the third world) hybrid apps like this offering are probably going to be very big, very soon. The only thing holding this back has been Microsoft's ability to cripple Web technologies and their monopoly influence in the office suite market.

  • Just curious about the tech. I ass/u/me this is all in Javascript. How are they writing to local storage? I must have fallen asleep at some point in my Javascript-learning and missed something. Are they exploiting a bu^H^H subtlety? It seems like whatever makes this possible, would be a hole that that browsers need to close.
    • Well, it does require the installation of Google Gears. IIRC Google Gears is a browser plugin/extension that acts as a proxy for your network connection. I suppose it's not difficult to make it special-case handle Google Docs requests and handle them by itself, including interacting with the local file system. Otherwise, I would see no need for Gears.
    • Here's a situation where AJAX is actually useful. I don't know how Google implements it but you can use javascript functions (aka AJAX) to send data to a page/app that does have permission for storage. Oh and very nice the ass/u/me .
  • by Per Abrahamsen ( 1397 ) on Tuesday April 01, 2008 @01:55PM (#22932416) Homepage
    I have evaluated both for use by my workplace, mostly because I despise the the "document sharing through email". I used cvs (and LaTeX) for collaborations on group assignments as a student back in the 80s, so I know how much better it can be. Unfortunately, both fail in my current work environment.

    Google Docs fail because it is not Microsoft Office, and I'm not going to convince my cow-orkers to learn a new set of office applications.

    Microsoft Office Live fails because it is too complicated and confusing for me to learn, much less teach. I couldn't even figure out if the documents are under version control, and the "integration" into the office applications is a joke (it is very slow and requires multiple indirections just to open a document, and it takes a separate navigation bar).

    So while my workplace is a lost cause, I use Google Docs with my family. It has a simple and intuitive interface, and my family are much less tied to MS Office than my workspace.

  • microsoft just added support for online document sharing with a little add-in for office. 500 mb space. of course you still need to have a copy of office whereas with google apps they're free.

    http://workspace.officelive.com/ [officelive.com]
  • If you are writing a doctorate thesis or a novel, or your C*O or director must have that perfect letter head to send out their decree, yeah, MS Office is better for the job. Actually a Mac would be really what you want, since MS actually makes Office better on the Mac than the PC version. And Pages and Keynote from Apple give your professional document templates and presentation on a par, if not better, than most Word and PowerPoints you'll see. Not to mention the additional Adobe design tools you can use t

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