Google Launches Powerpoint Competition, Web Ads for Mobile Devices

fullstop writes "Google has finally launched their online presentation tool to complete its office offerings at Google Docs." Relatedly several users have also mentioned that Google plans to start selling ads for cell phone-targeted websites. "The company said that its new product, AdSense for Mobile, would establish a cellphone advertising network in which Google would match ads with the content of mobile Web pages, much as it does online. Other Internet giants, including Yahoo and AOLTime Warner, as well as some start-ups, have also created advertising networks tailored for mobile phones."

Not so sure...

[gravos]

This will definitely overshadow the Zimbra bought by Yahoo yesterday and will haunt Microsoft Office unless they provide a simple webminar option.

I'm not so sure. Office has a lot of momentum and it will be hard to dethrone it or even steal away just a bit of marketshare unless Google finds a strong way to leverage their position to encourage people to use it.

For example, Apple has taken some marketshare away from Powerpoint with Keynote (insofar as I've seen people using it instead of MS Office), but only because they have a captive market to sell to.

Apps that you can access anywhere...

[TofuMatt]

... isn't that why I own a notebook in addition to my desktop machine?

Seriously, why would I want to use anything short of Keynote wherever I am?

The mobile ads are kind of cool though; I imagine with the advent of Safari on the iPod, we'll be seeing a tonne of mobile versions of things we love now.

Re:Not shabby

[darthflo]

Most people I talk to are still skeptical of them.

I agree that it is a rather nice product, however I still belong to the skepticists for some reasons:

• Privacy (i.e. Google sees everything I do)
• Not liking the idea of losing all my docs if Google decides to be bankrupt some day (I know I can store all my docs locally, but that'd defeat most of GDocs advantages
• Features (i.e. GDocs "is teh sux" when feature-compared to OOo or even MSO 2007)
• Web apps may be nice, but they're made much more than they are. Remember moving away from dumb terminals not too long ago?
• Availability (Thanks to WWAN and good mobile networks, I am seldomly disconnected, but I'd like to be able to have my stuff handy when abroad or in a cave (powering my notebook with a miniature nuclear reactor (the cave's deep enough not to let any GSM/802.11/CDMA radio in or Pu radiation out, no threat to National Security® there)))

too risky, no multi-display presenter tools

[SuperBanana]

Google has finally launched their online presentation tool to complete its office offerings at Google Docs."

Why this will never take off:

First- no presenter in their right mind wants to rely on the internet to deliver a presentation. We tell people to have a copy ready on at LEAST one other kind of media, especially if they're giving a big talk. I know people who spread important presentations across multiple media, which is spread across their luggage when traveling. Ie, the presentation is on their USB key in their pocket, but also on a CD in case the key is broken (for example, maybe the plane ride is bumpy and the seatbelt causes the drive's connector to snap off.) We even have them put it on their webmail account in case they lose *everything* for some reason.

But...do the presentation requiring second-to-second internet access to work? Bwahahahahahaahaa.

Second- even if you can export it (for example, as a PDF), very few if any PDF viewers support dual-monitor layout. Powerpoint and Keynote, the biggest presentation tools, both support a "presenter display" on the second monitor; you can see things like a preview of the next slide, a presentation timer+clock, your notes for the current slide- or all of the above.

Offline work?

[betterunixthanunix]

"Most people I talk to are still skeptical of them."

Offline work? Yeah, you can make it with the Google app, then download it and work on it offline...but then, why bother to use the Google app? This is the problem with web-apps: you are relying on an internet connection, and we just don't have that kind of infrastructure here in America. Then there is the problem of putting your data in someone else's hands. And the lack of an actual AJAX standard. And the fact that Google apps don't support my browser of choice (forcing me to change the user agent...and have it work anyway. So why is it still unsupported?).

So get back to me when this stuff isn't a problem, and I'll look at Google apps again.

Re:Not so sure...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It does not have to win over 50% to make a difference. All it [google or any competition of MsOffice] has to do is to reach a critical mass. Currently people keep buying MsOffice because this is the only product that is guaranteed to be accepted by others they work with. And MsOffice freely changes file formats, look and feel, rendering engines, so that others can't interoperate with it. If there is a critical mass of people who routinely return the doc sent by email saying, "Please save it in pdf/office97/... format and send it back to me". And if they get docs in odf and MsOffice has trouble rendering exactly as intended, people will start thinking about office software. Once a critical mass is reached, things will very quickly settle down into an common medium.

What that critical mass is, I don't know. I would speculate it is around 10% of the market. That 10% will routinely interact with at least 20% of the MS-office customers.

A good old example of this is the EBCDIC vs ASCII battle. Old IBM mainframes and their teminals used to use Extended binary coded decimal Isomething Csomething and IBM used to sell these terminals, tape drives, modems etc at a nice premium. The non-proprietary open standard ASCII languished for a long long time. Then when the things turned around, IBM had to adopt ASCII eventually and the EBCDIC peripheral market, if it still exists, is nowhere near the ASCII in terms of marketshare.

OMG I am telling the whole world, how old I am. People think I am posting it while waiting for Social security checks at the post office!!!

Re:Not shabby

[Rhaban]

It also doesn't support transitions.

Actually, I think that's a good thing. If there's one think I hate more than poorly designed powerpoint presentations, it's poorly design powerpoint presentations with over-animated special effect transitions.

Re:Offline work?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Offline work? Yeah, you can make it with the Google app, then download it and work on it offline...but then, why bother to use the Google app?"

This may not apply to you, but I like it because I work from several different computers throughout the day. Google Docs is a nice centralized place to work on documents. I can start something at home, go to work, work on it some more, go back home, do even more, etc. I don't have to tote the docs around on a thumb-drive or something. It's valuable to me, so much so that I don't even bother installing Office anymore. Of course, your mileage may vary.

Re:oops our server made a booboo

[pagaboy]

It looks to me like where this is really useful is in preparing the presentation. Rather than having to email versions around the office, forgetting which is the current one, all those involved can just edit it online.

As for doing a presentation, Firefox 3 should allow this app to work offline. That's when it gets interesting, and web connections are no longer an issue.

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[account_deleted]

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Re:Not so sure...

[LMacG]

Interchange Code. But thanks for the chuckle, fellow old guy.