Is it time to sell out to Google?
posted under category: General on October 11, 2006 by Nathan
I don't mean for my daily searching. I mean for all of my typical work (minus programming). Exactly how wrong is it to completely sell out?
Today, Google released Google Docs, which basically googlized Writely and strengthened their link to Google Spreadsheets. I've been using both for a while, for personal, portable docs, and you can tell that things are really starting to get exciting. Without expending too much brainpower, anyone can see where they're going.
Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets are the cornerstone of their office offering. Combine that with GMail and Google Calendar, whose integration with each other is becoming completely awesome, and you've got 90% of the typical use for most office suites.
Of course, no one's office is the same as any others. Some of them offer presentation software, some drawing software, some note taking, most have basic web site tools. Open Office has a mathematical equasion tool. Microsoft has a diagaraming app and a project management app. Corel has a photo editor. KDE's KOffice has all of this, plus dedicated charting and reporting tools. Google has mapping and searching built in.
I think that Google's office is almost completely viable in this space. What's missing? What's coming next? Other than the possibility of a new tool here or there, I'd say it's obvious what's next. Packaging. Google Office Suite is coming soon. It's already so close. They only need a central launching point for their tools. I can see many opportunities for central launching points, such as the google personalized homepage, gmail, search results pages, etc. The google talk desktop app would be my personal favorite.
Very soon now we'll start seeing "Web 2.0"-style companies switching to Google as their central document repository and dealing with customers and clients through the Google Office.
Next step? The Google Hosted Office Solution! Stay tuned...