Google To Steal Office Web Apps' Thunder? 151
Barence writes "Google has stepped up its assault on Microsoft's productivity software with the acquisition of a start-up company that allows Office users to edit and share their documents on the Web. The search giant has acquired DocVerse for an undisclosed sum. Product manager Jonathan Rochelle said DocVerse software makes it easier for users and businesses to move their existing PC documents to the cloud, and that Google 'fell in love with what they were doing to make that transition easier.' Microsoft said in an emailed statement that Google's acquisition of DocVerse acknowledges that customers want to use and collaborate with Office documents. 'Furthermore, it reinforces that customers are embracing Microsoft's long-stated strategy of software plus services, which combines rich client software with cloud services.'"
Re:Normal people hate web apps. (Score:3, Informative)
I hate to break it to you, but IE6 is used by about 30% of home users in America, 25% of home users in Europe, and upwards of 85% of home users in South Korea and Japan. For those same regions, corporate IE6 users are typically an additional 10% to 15% beyond those values.
Talk all you want about "real web apps". They're absolutely useless when so many people just can't run them.
Re:Cloud (Score:3, Informative)
It takes Microsoft Excel approximately 1.5 seconds to load on a moderately old PC running Windows XP; this with many more features available to it...
Re:Normal people hate web apps. (Score:3, Informative)
The ones who hate them the most are the long-time users who once were able to use real applications
I don't know about that. I've long used various thick clients to read my e-mail; and then, one day, I switched to GMail, and didn't look back. I'm perfectly happy with UI and features - and, most importantly, the fact that they are the same and readily available on any computer I might come by.
Re:Cloud (Score:3, Informative)
Yeah because your start menu preloads most of it. Kill that and then start an office app and you'll get a fair comparison. For reference, I can startup a large spreadsheet in Google Docs in 3 seconds. Beat that with your moderately old PC and MSoft Excel.
Re:Normal people hate web apps. (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, in a proper web app, you take advantage of onbeforeunload. For example, consider the fairly minimal web app used in the Safari Client-Side Storage and Offline Applications Programming Guide [apple.com]. It's not described in the documentation, but in the complete sample (part of the companion files archive), it does this:
handler to warn you if you are about to leave the page with unsaved changes. */
function saveChangesDialog(event)
{
var contentdiv = document.getElementById('contentdiv');
var contents = contentdiv.contentDocument.body.innerHTML;
var origcontentdiv = document.getElementById('origcontentdiv');
var origcontents = origcontentdiv.innerHTML;
if (contents == origcontents) {
return NULL;
}
return "You have unsaved changes.";
}
page without saving changes. */
function setupEventListeners()
{
window.onbeforeunload = function () {
return saveChangesDialog();
};
}
When you are using this and you try to navigate away from the page, whether with back/forward buttons or with the close button, the browser displays a dialog box. If users click "OK", then yeah, they lose their changes. If they click "Cancel", then the back/forward/close clicks are ignored and they're dropped back into the web app.
Note that the handler function must *not* call alert() itself. It must do as little work as possible and must return a string for the browser to display. The "You have unsaved changes." bit comes from the script. The rest of the dialog box is browser-specific. Note that you cannot do very much in this function or the browser will ignore the handler entirely. That's why a lot of folks seem to believe that Safari doesn't support onbeforeunload.... In the case of Safari, this bit of code generates a dialog box that looks something like this:
JavaScript
Are you sure you want to leave this page?
You have unsaved changes.
Click OK to continue, or Cancel to stay on this page.
(OK) (Cancel)
Re:Let's see some of these "real web apps". (Score:3, Informative)
One of the things that annoy me is that you are unable to un-thread a conversation.
I try to label my purchases by type but my newegg purchases all are threaded together so I have to go through multiple emails to find what I am looking for.
This also comes up when someone emails me and uses and existing thread rather than starting a new one.
I go like the interface, but it has some wierd restrcitions.