Google Launches New Assault On Microsoft Office 126
Hugh Pickens writes writes "BetaNews reports that Google has announced the global availability of Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, which went into beta late last year with technology that builds off Google's acquisition of DocVerse. Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office is essentially a plugin for Windows versions of the productivity suite (2003, 2007, 2010). 'The plugin syncs your work through Google's cloud, so everyone can contribute to the same version of a file at the same time,' says Google Apps product manager Shan Sinha. Additionally, Google announced a 90-day trial for Appsperience, described as 'a way for companies that currently use cumbersome legacy systems to see how web-powered tools help their teams work together more effectively.'"
How is this an assault? (Score:5, Insightful)
The title does not seem to go with the article. It sounds like Google is adding more functionality to Microsoft Office, free of charge. What am I missing?
Re:collaboration doesn't look as good as in gdocs (Score:4, Insightful)
Erm, so in your opinion, every time more then one person have to work on the same file at the same time (aka collaboration), sitting at the one, same computer, it's a "clusterfuck"?
Do you even understand what collaboration features are designed for? They are there to recreate the experience of multiple people sitting at one monitor and keyboard, working on one document. This is common office work in most companies, from more complex presentations to folks in accounting going over same account sheets and everything in between.
This is supposed to be this way. It has always done that way before, when these people sat in the same room. Nowadays everyone is at their own workstation, collaborating in the cloud is essentially trying to recreate that same thing. You can do stuff like "hey, what do you think of this here?" "no, this here is wrong", etc while being on other sides of the planet without having to essentially email the same document back and forth a thousand time.
Re:How is this an assault? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are taking aim at SharePoint. Now users can collaborate on documents without needing Microsoft's solution (SharePoint).
Re:BINGO! (Score:5, Insightful)
SharePoint is good for a lot of things, but I would put Google Docs like collaboration pretty far down the list. It's great for large projects. I've seen construction companies and law firms leverage it very successfully. But for 10 people, Google Docs is probably all you need.
The thing I like about SharePoint is the way it supports processes and work flows. For example, if you have something like a construction bidding process where you're often filling out the same forms over and over again, and a lot of people are involved at different phases of the process, you can setup a work flow to route the documents from person to person. SharePoint handles the noticing "Hey Bob, it's time for you to sign off on X, Y and Z! Click here."
They're not assaulting anything with Docs sucking (Score:4, Insightful)
They've spent the last year making Docs suck more and more.
1. Disabled offline editing, no replacement in sight but they promise it'll be fixed.
2. Locked you into fixed page width and are unable to change how things are laid out.
3. The new editor removed tons of customization because it was a big rewrite. I can understand getting basic features working before working on advanced ones but you can't roll out a new version of your product with less features than the original, critical features people are relying on.
This is a problem with software as a service. If you fucking HATE the ribbon you can stick with Office 2003. There's the issue of not being able to work as easily with people using the new version of Office but at least your internal documents are fine. Using Docs, you have to upgrade when everyone else does and if they screw up something you like, there's no sticking with the old version.