Google & Sun Planning Web Office 751
astrab writes "According to this post at Dirson's blog, Google and Sun Microsystems are to announce a new and kick-ass webtool: an Office Suite based on Sun's OpenOffice and accesible with your browser. Today at 10:30h (Pacific Time) two companies are holding a conference with more details, but Jonathan Schwartz (President of Sun Microsystems) claimed on Saturday on this post of his blog that "the world is about to change this week", predicting new ways to access software."
Good deal (Score:5, Interesting)
it right on the front of the google home page.
But does it .. (Score:3, Interesting)
The real test of AJAX, I guess. (Score:5, Interesting)
This assumes the web office is written in AJAX and not Java. If it's written in Java, expect trouble. I used Corel Wordperfect for Java, man. It wasn't a usable tool.
Also, to be quite frank, they're going to have to put some very serious interface cleanup work into this. StarOffice is really just not up to the level of quality in terms of user interface which Google's tools tend to follow.
Incidentally, is it just me or does it seem odd that they're targeting Word BEFORE Exchange?
Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Web-office.. (Score:2, Interesting)
The idea is good though, imagine being able to sit at home, work or school working on the same documents at the same loctaion without having to worry about usb drives and moving datas.
I think I would be careful about storing sensitive or private data onto it as I really see this becoming a prime target for crackers.
I wonder what technology it will use (Score:5, Interesting)
Compatibility (Score:3, Interesting)
I can only imagine how Gates is feeling..
Re:Microsoft's Worst Fear (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems to me that Google's brand recognition will be a hugem benefit in this endeavour, and I, for one, look forward to seeing how well it is adopted. My fingers are crossed that it might be a success. I am very interested to see how such a service will be embraced by the public.
shortcuts (Score:5, Interesting)
Google - OK. But Sun? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The real test of AJAX, I guess. (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.somis.dundee.ac.uk/pub/corelindex.htm [dundee.ac.uk]
The past of web-based office suites...
No kidding (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, before this time we had never considered the concept, but once we did, it really opened doors for possibilities. I remember thinking to myself it is only a matter of time before more people start doing this. And now, a few years later, here we are with Google and Sun claiming they will change the world with this. The are a little late in books, and not far enough into the project to claim the world will change. Nevertheless, it will be cool to see it done (if it works well).
Re:Microsoft's Worst Fear (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, I did I mention that all your data will belong to Microsoft?
Why is your comment "interesting"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, though, the concept of versions becomes a little irrelevant, don't you think? I suspect they'll launch a version 1 as soon as they possibly can. The marketing types will hype up a version 2 and version 3, but the engineers will know better. They'll be able to incrementally update their software every day, if they so choose. Zillions of little changes will evolve this suite into something special.
As for MS Office compatibility... I assume that they will one day give users the ability to upload a .doc file and have it render well in their web office. This might be in version 1, because it is pretty damned important.
The world is changing alright. Schwartz's comment might be full of hubris, but he's right (though he might not be able to honestly take credit). Interactive web applications and ever increasing broadband will ultimately trump the desktop. If you don't believe this, then you don't appreciate deploying a webapp versus local installations.
I will be able to install this office suite by typing in a URL and hit ctrl-enter. When they update the software to version 2, 3, 4, and 5, I'll have each one instantly.
The desktop is (ultimately) doomed. It'll take a while, but webapps are the way to go for a large percentage of needs. Even Bill Gates knows this.
This is gonna be great (Score:5, Interesting)
Although I guess in fairness, MS Office has the first two items covered already.
Just wait (Score:1, Interesting)
till the security department finds out you have been uploading and composing confidential business documents to a third party advertising based company who reads the entire content, then links it to your profile to taget commericial pitches based on the content of your documents
you should get your coat and start clearing out your desk now
because if i ever found a memeber of staff using a service like this they would be out the door pretty rapid
keeping a hang on USB drives and laptops is enough headache as it is without stafdf members giving away our company documents to other businesses
$.02 (Score:5, Interesting)
That being said, that wouldn't be the best strategy available from a monitary perspective. In this case, java would be considered a sunk cost. And I can't see any PHB's, even at sun, thinking otherwise.
So, the strategy is probably focused on promoting Operating System agnostism. And, if sun is lucky, get attention and prove (to the average person, not programmers and admins) that they are relevant. Hence, the potential for long term gain. In this case, breaking even on the investment is well worth it.
I don't think this is a game that Microsoft wants to play because no matter what the outcome they have to lose, with the exceptional case of this not catching on. But if google promotes it, at the very least, free office software should get attention no matter what.
This is just my 2 cents, but with exchange rates I think it only amounts to 1.
I'm still working on this... (Score:4, Interesting)
I can download one for free, if I wish, and it does not have advertising.
It starts faster, and will probably do more.
It does not require an internet connection to work.
It does not broadcast any document I work on over the Internet.
Granted, some of these are speculation on how the new suite would work, but it's speculation based on similar existing apps.
The most useful thing I can think of would to be able to download a copy to a local machine, which equates to some damn easy deployment of software.
~D
wtf? (Score:3, Interesting)
Full circle (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Will be able to write a document without AdSens (Score:5, Interesting)
Googles main business is searching.. and that's what they make their profit.
MS otoh makes a large part of their profit from the Office suite.
So MS got more interested in the search engine business.. Google doesn't like it and wants to fight back.. so they now pick their battle field.
Not the searching business as they've got too much too loose, but the office business. Google doesn't have a lot to loose there but MS does.
Things like these happened in the past.. if a competitor from another business comes into your business, you see where you can hurt him the most and attack him in this business..
Shift the focus, make clear to him he's got more to loose than you, and hope he'll retreat and you can focus on your core business.
So either an office suite war will start.. or MS will slow down on the area of searching and let Google have that part of the market.
Just think about the plug-ins (Score:2, Interesting)
The plug-in market for this will be interesting. I can edit documents on the web; But what if I can compile code on the web? And colaborate with other on my C++ / C / Embedded ARM project? No need for me to install some god-awfull toolchain; It's there on the web. I edit, hit compile, and back comes my image. Latest version? There when I'm ready. Cost? Free if I dont mind some carefully targeted ads.
Security, or more to the point trust, is my only issue now.
Read my lipps (Score:2, Interesting)
o Clustering and Load Balancing on the fly!
o Host your own services, radio stations, et all
OK OK I know you're not ready for it all yet, I just VERY glad that a HUGE PUBLIC will have the experience of working on OpenOffice like WebOffice Suite THUS making it easier to accelerate the pace of desktop migrations to Linux, for instance...
Re:Two Years Later (Score:3, Interesting)
I heard Scott McNealy speak last summer and he was totally gung ho about this exact idea, in nearly those exact words. Except what did he call it, um, "Utility computing [itnews.com.au]". The theory is that upkeep on your computers should be something as impersonal and effortless as paying your electricity bill, and should be managed the same way, you should take one step beyond outsourcing your IT department into outsourcing the insides of the computers themselves. Because if you don't have anything running locally, you don't need a local IT department, right? This wasn't even about thin clients, so much; by McNealy's reckoning, you could do this today, nearly. He was talking about how he wished he could shut down Sun's internal mail servers, stop having to go to the bother of maintaining all the email clients and such across all the operating systems Sun internally supports, and just sign all his employees up for Yahoo Mail or something.
The reason Sun likes the idea of all software being reduced to a service provided by remote application providers is because once that happens, they can try to sell Sun hardware to the application providers.
Re:Microsoft's Worst Fear (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Will be able to write a document without AdSens (Score:4, Interesting)
Web Office is a good idea. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft's Worst Fear (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's just keep it in perspective. Open Source is the big revolution, and what is working wonders in the technology world today - not Google. Google is a company, and right now Google knows exactly how to serve and please its customers. Let's hope they continue that trend, but everyone fails eventually -- even a mega-billion dollar company.
Maybe (Score:4, Interesting)
One good thing that should come out of this is improved MS Office integration for Openoffice - users are going to want to import/export Office docs to send to other people and the kind of massive user base and testing Google can provide should help to catch all those annoying minor import problems with OO.org.
As several have already stated... (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe this is why Google was buying up all that unused fiber?
What if? (Score:4, Interesting)
Google has the resources to pull this off. Sure, they're draining talent away from Microsoft to come work for them...why not do the same to Apple? Make a kick-ass UI, have it run on top of Linux...hell, you could even make your own API instead of using X-windows if you really wanted to. Start from scratch, why not? They have the money, the time, the personnel. Write the drivers for the hardware yourselves.
I mean, come on. They have all that talent working there now and quite frankly, they've only come out with "neato" little things here and there. Yes, great search engine. But take all that talent and make something really cool! Something revolutionary!
Dream comes true? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it was IBM that first championed the cause of having applications that were provisioned only for selected users who paid for it. This was like in the 80s and early 90s. The more you paid, the more applications were available on the mainframe, for your user id. I am not sure about the details since never worked in this field.
Then, Microsoft came along and cornered IBM's market. They cornered the market by making people realize that owning your software actually means having it on a disk, taking it wherever you want, etc. After they cornered the entire market, they started talking about Web Services - about Office being run on the web. This is like Steve Balmer's dream.
Now Google comes along and actually moves forward in that direction, but interestingly, they have most people on their side. Will Google become the next Microsoft?
Re:This is so much worse that MS Office (Score:5, Interesting)
If the data is accessible in a standard format (it seems likely that this will save into OpenDocument, and GMail can be accessed through POP3), the underlying database is unimportant. I can see the problem with GMail, since its labels don't map onto a currently-standard protocol, though.
As for releasing source, Google's business model is based upon advertising, so it's not in their interest to release the source that would allow people to quickly create identical competitors. They spent the time and money on the development, it's theirs to apply their business model to. This does not make them evil. Not by a long way. They're conducting their business and systems in such a way that people can obtain their services for free, and that they can make a profit.
They have not acted in a way remotely resembling "evil" in this matter. They're not sucking your freedom — your data is accessible through open protocols. They're not sucking your privacy — your data is analysed by a computer system to provide targetted advertising. As much as spam filters are "stealing my privacy", I'm not convinced it's a serious issue.
Re:What if? (Score:5, Interesting)
Firefox (hooked in with Google-stuff), Google Office, and some of the usual opensource tools. The trick is to get a major PC manufacturer on board like Dell or something, so that hardware support isn't a huge problem (you control the hardware).
Re:Google Conquers all (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Google Conquers all (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember how ebay got nailed for ads asking if you want to buy a slave because the word slave appeared on a page, and google got into the act too: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/24/ebay_afric an_slaves/ [theregister.co.uk]
So you'll see ads having to do with a combination of glue, panties, and bikes in France or some other such shit.This is a big deal (Score:4, Interesting)
This hurts Microsoft right where they can be hurt the most. It's worth noting that their other divisions don't make near the amount of money that Office does; and it could be argued that as Office goes, so goes the OS. If you can access an office suite from any browser, would you care as much what OS you use, be it Win, Linux, OS X, or a Google OS?
Here's some reaction to this, in no specific order:
This could really be online services done right, and if anybody would do them right it'd be Google: they have the server infrastructure to support this kind of move, and few other companies do, including Microsoft. We might remember this announcement as the day the PC died in 5 years--that might be pretty forward thinking, but if this works out as well as it reasonably might, do you need more than a browser platform for average computing tasks? Particularly when your email, browser, and office docs are unified by the great need to search that body of information by the best search engine yet designed?
Re:What if? (Score:4, Interesting)
And I said "what if". Though what if they're making a very small OS that just gets you booted, loads a browser and then gets you online where you can access the googleverse?
Meh...what do I know. Hey, at least they're making neat things...just not revolutionary things.
Re:What if? (Score:3, Interesting)
Even ignoring the whole lack-of-revenue-source-from-massive-expense and massive-barriers-to-entry things, such an undertaking would be a /minimum/ five year project. I don't think Google has had the time.
Re:What if? (Score:4, Interesting)
As others have said, perhaps they're working on a minimum OS that loads in a few seconds and just provides a browser to access the Googleverse.
Companies always fall short in making products that are really revolutionary. Why couldn't Google create a small, bootable OS that works on a piece of hardware bigger than a PDA yet smaller than a full blown laptop. Large screen with great contrast to be able to read in very high or low light situations. Make it Wifi and touch screen. Surf the web, check your email, do work with the new Star/Open office through Google, chat, do your calender etc etc. Many many many companies have tried and failed to bring something like this to the masses. Why? Well, not only are they expensive, they are also limited. How many reviews of such devices are always "didn't have this...it had this but would be nice if it had that..." kind of thing. Well, MAKE it have things people will actually need and use. Make it the size of an average paperback book...only thinner. Don't worry about storage because everything will be online...just provide plenty of memory and processing power to do things. And here's the clincher...make it affordable.
Do I see Google doing something like this? Nah, not really. Would be nice though. Would be nice to have something like the little data-pads that were on Star Trek: The Next Generation. They were almost a perfect size. Maybe one day before I die I'll see a company that actually does it right and is a success with it.
Desktop users don't need an OS (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Google Conquers all (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The real test of AJAX, I guess. (Score:3, Interesting)
>> Incidentally, is it just me or does it seem odd that they're targeting Word BEFORE Exchange?
Before, or concurrently? GMail takes on half of exchange, just the calendar side to go..
>> I used Corel Wordperfect for Java, man. It wasn't a usable tool.
That's odd. I used Windows 3.0. It wasn't a usable tool.
Don't draw conclusions from 7 year old technology. Not in this industry.
I agree though - it'll be great to see what Google can do to improve the UI of basic Office apps, and it'll definitely challenge the responsiveness of AJAX apps (if they use that technology).
Printing could be fun too..
Microsoft could easily kill this (Score:4, Interesting)
If the app is like Gmail but even more complicated (which seems likely), even small changes to the browser features this app depends on (some of which are not standardized and were originally introduced by Microsoft) will have massive effects on the app's performance. And Microsoft could easily make such tweaks ad infinitum by way of "security updates" that close security holes by continuously re-tweaking the advanced features of IE.
Most users won't download a whole new browser just to try out a new Google feature. They might not even realize they have to...when a site doesn't work right most users assume it's the site's fault, not the browser's.
Re:I wonder what technology it will use (Score:3, Interesting)
1. I doubt that Ajax has the power to support a full office suit that could compete with MS Office.
Why? All you're using AJAX for is the UI, any real processing is being done server-side. And if you want an example of what AJAX can do UI-wise, check out the demos at Bindows [bindows.net] - it's pretty cool.
Re:Well, that was a HUGE letdown (Score:4, Interesting)
What was Google's alternative,
-- John.