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.'"
Normal people hate web apps. (Score:5, Interesting)
Most developers don't realize this, but average users absolutely hate web apps. They typically aren't anywhere near as easy to use as normal desktop applications.
The ones who hate them the most are the long-time users who once were able to use real applications, but were forced into using "upgraded" web-based versions. They saw their productivity drop, and they're not happy about it. After all, they're the ones who then get stuck putting in longer hours to do the same job, just because of a supposed software "upgrade".
As long as Google focuses only on the web, then Microsoft has absolutely nothing to worry about. Their desktop applications will always be superior to whatever web-based apps Google or anyone else might put out.
Re:Normal people hate web apps. (Score:3, Interesting)
....sounds like something a web app developer would say.
I kid, kid. ;)
Exactly. Bit By Bit (Score:2, Interesting)
One just has to look at what happened to Microsoft over the past year, layoffs, projects and teams getting axed, to imagine what even a 10, 20 or 30 percent hit to their massive office software revenues would be like.
I think back to most of the computing jobs I've had over the past 10-15 years. Every single one of them it was standard to get a full Microsoft office suite that I never used or anyone else in development used. All just to be able on the off chance of reading some trivial spreadsheet or Microsoft text document.
If Microsoft continues to lose their ability to lock people into their office software they are going have start axing their large scale multi-billion dollar clusterfuck products like the 8 billion dollar Xbox fiasco or Ballmer's new multi-billion a year losing turd of a search engine.
Re:Normal people hate web apps. (Score:5, Interesting)
Most developers don't realize this, but average users absolutely hate web apps. They typically aren't anywhere near as easy to use as normal desktop applications.
That may be true - but its funny how these things always work out - its the developers who decide where the platform is, not the user. Developers are loving web apps. Why? It means you don't have to worry about installing your app, you don't have to worry about different versions, updating is a snap, support is a snap, and its accessible from almost anywhere. These "Upgraded" versions make a developer's and a support staff's life easier. So thats the way the market is going to go.
As long as Google focuses only on the web, then Microsoft has absolutely nothing to worry about.
Sounds like some famous last words. Like how Newspapers won't have to worry about internet blogs.
Re:Cloud (Score:5, Interesting)
Great, more JavaShit-ridden bloatware
So, JavaScript makes it bloatware? Last time I checked, Google Docs was faster loading by large factor than OpenOffice, MS Office or any of the other WP/Spreadsheet apps out there. How do you define "bloated," here?
that stores all your stuff on someone else's server
You make it sound as if that comes with no advantages. There are dozens ... here are a few.
One demo of the idea of publishing data to the Web that blew me away was in Google's Official Blog about their public data sources [blogspot.com], where they plotted a time-series of world fertility data. There's lots of decent examples on the Google Docs official blog [blogspot.com] as well.
There's also the fact that all Google applications allow you to export your data to local apps, if you wish. The Open Office format export is quite nice in Google Docs (import is OK, but at least for the spreadsheet it has a ways to go).
while feeding you a steady AJAX-based stream of ads.
Only if you don't want to pay for it. Google Docs via a premium Google Apps domain does not have ads.
The only reason this stuff is so popular now is because people won't pay $99.99 for a MS Office license anymore so instead MS/Google are writing server-side adware to try and get the $99 from advertisers over a couple of years.
Ah... no. That's the reason that they're doing it, not the reason that it's popular. The reason that it's popular is that it's useful and free (again, if you don't want to pay for the ad-free version).
Stuff your anti-spyware scanner would automatically delete for you if it was being run locally.
Most anti-spyware scanners don't give a rat's petard about applications that show ads or applications that store files remotely. Typically, the goal is to ferret out software that does either without the user's knowledge or ability to prevent. In both cases, Google Docs is 100% opt-in and entirely friendly to those who wish to opt out later on. [dataliberation.org]
Web application == Remotely accessed spyware
If your definition of spyware is any Web site that records your activity on the site or saves documents that you create for later use, then you need to include every ecommerce site on the planet. I don't think that's a definition the majority of the technical community would agree with.
AAPL Marketcap MSFT Soon (Score:1, Interesting)
It is funny to think back over the disastrous decade Ballmer has been in power at Microsoft. Back when Apple was on the verge of fading into irrelevance Microsoft was seen as basically having infinite resources that could buy anything.
And now Apple is getting close to topping Microsoft in market cap. The day that happens will be epic.
Re:market proof. (Score:4, Interesting)
I like how the Microsoft icon is Bill Gates as a Borg, but Google is just the logo.
Given that Google is the company spending its endless flow of advertising dollars acquiring everything in sight, the icons really ought to be the other way around.
Re:Let's see some of these "real web apps". (Score:4, Interesting)
You're kidding right? lot's of little annoying things in gmail. For ex, my voip provider has an email forwarding option for voicemail which I use with a gmail account. A friend called a while back and I was trying to find his number. I knew it was 310870 but that's all i could recall. So search for that and get nothing. Partial searches don't work in the subject.
I know, I'll sort by sender. Oh that's right, it's newest to oldest and that's it. Can't sort by attachments, name etc on the fly. Yeah you can do most/all with a filter, but what a pain. klunky in lots of ways.
Re:Let's see some of these "real web apps". (Score:4, Interesting)
I *just* tried a partial search --also for a part of a phone number-- and got precise results, including every message with the entire phone number. No idea why your partial string search failed.
I just tried the same thing, and it didn't work. I prefer the gmail interface over thunderbird, but he's right: there are quite a few things that are "klunky".