GDocs vs. ThinkFree vs. Zoho vs. MS Office 226
CWmike writes "Web-based productivity suites, once almost a contradiction in terms, have become real challengers to desktop applications. Google Docs, ThinkFree, and Zoho, have all made major improvements in recent months. They're becoming both broader, with more applications, and deeper, with more features and functionality in existing apps. The question is: Are these three applications really ready to take on a desktop-based heavy hitter like Microsoft Office?"
No.... (Score:4, Interesting)
well (Score:5, Interesting)
I spent a decent amount of time today reproducing an OO.o spreadsheet in Google Docs - still a long way to go there before it is a threat. The gDocs spreadsheet does some cool things for a web app - and I was impressed with some of the features (for a web app - see how I have to keep qualifying?) but it still doesn't come close to the desktop app.
Are web apps the new cross-platform darling? (Score:5, Interesting)
And because you work in a Web browser, they're cross-platform applications by default:
At work we are going through some issues because Apple decided to deprecate Quicktime for Java and now we are scrambling to find a replacement that will work on Windows and Macs. However, honestly writing cross-platform apps that play movies and deal with databases and lots of networked files isn't trivial to make cross platform, but it might be pretty easy if we went to the web. Is this the future direction for "cross-platform" applications?
Are we serious here ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, it would be probably better with a newer computer, but I feel sad that an application which is recognised as being a hog such as MS Office runs better on my computer than Google Docs. (I took a glance at TFA, and it seems to imply that Google Docs is the fastest solution of all 3).
performance seems to have improved; who'll use it? (Score:5, Interesting)
The last time I tried the google docs spreadsheet (maybe 6 months ago?), it was ridiculously slow. I was about to post here and point that out, but then I thought I ought to check how the performance was today, in case it had improved. Well, I don't have any real data, but my subjective impression is that they must have made vast improvements in its performance since the last time I tried it. It really seems fine now.
The question in my mind now is how many people are really going to want this.
I teach physics at a community college, and I have a bunch of linux boxes in the lab alongside the windows machines. The linux boxes only have Ooo, and the Windows boxes have both Ooo and Excel. It's been interesting seeing how students react to being presented with a choice between Excel and Ooo. I actually have documentation in the lab manual for Ooo, and none for Excel. Nevertheless, the vast majority don't want to mess with Ooo. Even if they have never used a spreadsheet before in their life, Excel is a brand name they've heard, so that's what they gravitate toward.
Re:Are we serious here ? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm posting this right now on an hp pavilion ze4430us bought in early 2003. It was $990 at the time from Circuit City (close to bottom of the line) with 512mb ram and a "mobile AMD Athlon(tm) XP2400+" (so says cat /proc/cpuinfo).
We run a google spreadsheet with 5 tabs and a few hundred rows in each tab (and some longrunning calculations on the front page) and it never has any performance issues with google docs, even with 3 of us editing at the same time. This is in firefox3 on ubuntu hoary something 8.04.
So an almost bottom of the line usable PC nowadays (i just use it for web and chat) has no problems with it...
Re:performance seems to have improved; who'll use (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't sound like it (Score:5, Interesting)
I just visited the home page of each of the three alternatives mentioned, and read their own words about what features their word processors offer. It was hard not to laugh: they actually describe things like being able to save your files and collaborate with others as features. I'm not sure any of them even mentioned a single real word processing feature anywhere on their list. And while some of the on-line features they plug have some merit — though I suspect many of them are really only gimmicks of little real world value — of course being on-line comes with some major downsides in the security and reliability areas.
Then I read TFA. (Yes, really. It's quiet night. ;-)) I think this quote is the most telling:
All three of these word processors are capable of tasks such as formatting the typefaces, placing and sizing graphics, arranging paragraphs, and setting up tables. But only ThinkFree offers the really sophisticated features, such as letting you format a hanging indent.
(Emphasis added)
If adding a hanging indent is sophisticated, these things aren't even glorified text editors, never mind word processors. Where's my real-time word count and spelling checking? My document structuring and organisation tools? My cross-references, footnotes and bibliographies? If they're going to pimp my pages, can I at least have a smart H&J algorithm and use my professional grade OpenType fonts? There is more to a word processor than basic text editing and the occasional picture or table!
I think it's safe to say the guys in Redmond don't need to start throwing chairs. The on-line apps aren't even Word from nearly two decades ago, yet.
Re:Office is da bomb. (Score:1, Interesting)
You missed a blinking sarcasm tag. "da bomb", "Yeah, now your wallet is moving"? That can't be serious. Then they pointed to a journal article ...
I can't recommend any of it. Having to pay $900 for a Windows/Office upgrade is bad. Spending $150 on top of $900 so you get to install and patch two versions of Windows verges on madness. What's best is to use free software. The interface change is only shocking for a month or two but you can get comfortable with anything, then you start to notice real productivity helpers like session management. The same thing can be said about Open Office and Google Docs. They do what you need, sometimes more and they are free.
The thing is.... (Score:5, Interesting)
None of them are all that great. Do Google Apps do everything Office does? No, clearly not. But frankly, I think Office is overrated. Granted, my copy is a couple of years old, but I just don't have much use for it. I open most things in OpenOffice, but even then, I'm converting a lot of it to text. I find all office suites ponderous and bloated, more by feature creep than any particular flaw in coding. Send me text, and I'll put it in Scribus or LaTeX.
Google Docs should be thought of as a highly-collaborative text editing environment, not a word processor. It looks exceptionally good when you look at it that way.
I use Zoho for sharing docs (Score:4, Interesting)
Still, if I'm going to type anything for printing I'll use Word. If I'm going to do anything that doesn't need to be continuously shared, I'll use one of the office apps. If I need a spreadsheet of any complexity, I'll use Office.
I'd much rather see Google & Zoho polish the features they do have (Zoho still can't print in Landscape format, has nothing close to WYSIWYG printing, and frequently locks. Google has no locking to prevent users from overwriting each other (last time I tried it...). Don't bloat till you've got the skeleton working.
interoperability more important than many realize (Score:4, Interesting)
I work at a non-profit. While we use Office internally, some of the groups are shifting to Google Docs for community outreach. Why? Because there's no software to buy, information can be shared between remote and local users, updated instantly.
I've tried using Word's version tracking features and they tend to fall down. Google Docs will allow simultaneous editing but it's auto-save feature needs work. It saves every 30 seconds so you can end up with a thousand edits that don't really mean anything. Two features that need to be added: the first feature is a data edit session. If Joe reviews the document, he can open a session, make his changes, and close the session. So when I want to see what Joe did, all I have to do is hit a filter that says "Highlight Joe's last session." Or maybe I could say "highlight all of Joe's changes." The other feature that would be great is versioning. After I finish my first draft, I promote the document to second draft and continue editing. Then I can track changes between draft 1 and draft 2, 3, etc, Joe's contributions between draft 1, 2, etc.
At this point in time, Excel is the only Microsoft application I actually like. Google has a way to go to equal that. But for data aggregation, Google Spreadsheets work just fine. Anyone can open the sheets, enter data, and I can copy and paste into Excel for anything more. Nobody has to own Excel or download anything, they can enter the data from any desktop in the world. Word gets grudging credit as the only good option for funky printing requirements. I haven't tried out OO for this yet, it may be up to snuff now.
Where Word really chaps my ass is that there's been no improvements in what's broken since I first started using it. Styles is borked, formatting is borked, there's little flexibility in layouts, tables are buggy, trying to size ANYTHING becomes an exercise in frustration because you cannot position by pixel but by arbitrary jumps, etc, etc. None of these problem areas are addressed, we're just buying the same old broken code with new turd polish each and every version.
Microsoft is still the king for now but there are dozens of companies and open source projects in the race to smoke their asses. If they keep standing still, they're going to be in it like kippers. Office 2007? Fucker can't even share user resources properly. If I want to share contacts from 2007 to someone with 2003, I have to go onto his fucking machine and add myself in as an alternate mailbox. I have to go into tools, mail servers, exchange, add it in. WTF? And the stupid mail invite that goes out when you invite someone, nevermind getting permissions proper when it does things automagically. Grr!
Re:performance seems to have improved; who'll use (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:performance seems to have improved; who'll use (Score:3, Interesting)
I was pissed off enough that she required us to use a program of her choice to generate a PDF that I simply didn't bother to learn.
Seems you completely misunderstood what she was pretending: my guess is that she wanted you to learn another point of view in the field of documents creation.
I just OO.o, same as always, and exported to PDF. The marker didn't know the difference.
Just because she didn't say anything does not mean she didn't know. She knew most of you would not use LaTeX.
This course I've driven a final career project, and convinced the boy to use LyX (I helped him installing it on windows, which is pretty easy by the way). At the beginning it was tricky for him, but after a couple of days he was comfortable. At the end he recognizes how much work he has avoided respect writing his work on MsOffice.
The point is that his mates were puzzled about how elegant his work looked like. I've been reviewing some of the works and none come close to LaTeX look -further, there are some horrible looking ones-. Ensuring style consistency is pretty hard at tools so elastic as office packages are.
Re:Litmus test (Score:3, Interesting)
I wrote my resume in Google Docs. Overall, it did a pretty good job, and made it a lot easier to not only track revisions, but also to share it with a few chosen people who were givnig me some assitance in writing it.
After it was finished, I found it trivial to save it as a .doc and do last minute formatting in Open Office. Most of the formatting issues were really caused by minor font differences created by the constant changes and revisions. I have since re-uploaded the final version to google docs.
So to answer your question, yes.
Re:interoperability more important than many reali (Score:2, Interesting)
I also think that Google Docs is a very good solution for some scenarios such as small non-profits. I work with coffee coops and one of the biggest problems is maintaining machines running because they all want to run Windows OS and Office... from what I've seen, in the international arena Microsoft is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to any real development. Organizations that are strapped for resources spend too much time and money on maintaining their Windows crippled boxes.
One of the things that I have done is to convince a few of them that they need to shift to Ubuntu, and to start using Google Docs (OO if not connected to the internet).
So far one of the complaints I've heard is that the machines running ubuntu make them nervous because they are not crashing regularly... as if that was a bad thing. Also, by using Google Docs they have their vital documents backed up and not at risk of getting lost if the machine they are using gets damaged or stolen (there have been significant flooding in the last few weeks... at least the data is safe).
Most of the world does not have the unlimited resources that US companies seem to have. Coffee growers in the global South have incomes that are well below the $4 bucks people spend for a Venti Caramel Machiatto (whatever that is... ), sharing their meager incomes with Microsoft should be considered a crime against humanity.
So with this in mind, I think that any solution that is open source and improves the day to day experience people like the farmers I am working with, is the best route to take (I have not dealt with crashes now in a few weeks, nor do we have problems with viruses, malware, etc.)
Re:My objection exactly (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not willing to trust a third party with my stuff, and neither should any self respecting company.
Like Microsoft ?
MS Word could be FTP-ing your docs to Redmond every night for all you know.