Google Docs + Spreadsheets

The good news at last. Writely, the word processing online software from Google, and Google Spreadsheets are merging to turn into Google Docs & Spreadsheets. It was officially announced last week.

It is a big relief for me, and a logical move, that both of these web software packages have been combined. You can now use a single Google account to access both.

Now, how does Microsoft react to that? MS Office is the second-highest revenue generating software for Microsoft, after MS Windows. MS Office offers a number of functions including a spreadsheet (MS Excel) and word processor (MS Word) - the two most popular applications in the suite. But Google is offering the same functionality for free. Its going to be a tough challenge for Microsoft.

Few months ago, Heather Gillisen Microsoft spokeswomen said:

Google’s new spreadsheet product is just an imitation of functionality that many other vendors already deliver. The innovations we’re delivering in Excel in terms of new usability, new visual user interface advancements, support for collaboration and business intelligence with things like Excel Services are so far beyond Google Spreadsheets that it’s like watching a time machine from 10 years ago.

I do feel that being online might come to your disadvantage sometimes. When you are not connected, you are plugged out of your system. It would be wonderful to have an offline version of the software so that you are in sync with your hard drive and the online storage. Looks like Google is working out a way on this issue.

By the way, you can share both Google spreadsheets and documents, as well as publish documents to a variety of hosted blog platforms including Blogger.com, Livejournal.com, Squarespace.com, and Wordpress.com, as well as custom (own domain) platforms such as Blogger, Movable Type, and Wordpress.

Editor’s note: Zoho has a suite of Office-like web-based applications, including ZohoWriter and ZohoSheet. While I have used both, I find that due to their popularity, at least the ZohoWriter service has been either slow or down completely as of late. As such, I’m not completely sold on the idea of SaaS (Software as a Service) applications. Alternately, there is the free Open Office, which is Java-based and runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and other platforms. I use it quite extensively on computers where I do not have have MS Excel or Word.