All Web 2.0 eyes are going to be on Google tomorrow. Why? CNet is reporting that Google is going to launch a spreadsheet app, to be called Google Spreadsheets. The New York Times has further details here.
The browser-based app supposedly will not be as feature complete as Excel, however, “out of the box” it is going to enable sharing and collaboration of spreadsheets and ad-hoc databases as well as a remote autosave feature. The best part? It’s going to be free. For many small businesses these are going to be killer features.
I realize that up to this point both Google and Microsoft have been insisting that they will not be building browser-based Office suites. It looks like Google is the first to step forth and do it anyway–at least that’s what it looks like at this point. We’ll have to see what this really is. How far is Google going to take this idea?
For me, I’m really excited. I want to see how ink can fit into this. How text-based will these apps be? Will they support images? If so, ink may have a chance. My fingers are crossed….two times over.
Google is directly competing with open source projects like OpenOffice and Sun’s free StarOffice.
Google acquired Writely (word processing) and now has a spreadsheet. There was speculation last year that Google would partner with Sun to offer a version of StarOffice. Instead Google has decided to go its own way and compete with OpenOffice and StarOffice.
C/Net says “Google spreadsheets turns up heat on Excel” I don’t think so. Microsoft Office is a powerful, industrial strength, client based, information worker productivity platform. Microsoft Office is moving beyond just being a collection of applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) to being a server based application platform for ISVs. Lots of companies run their business on Excel spreadsheets. Now creative start-ups are using Office as a front end User Interface to a whole variety of business applications.
I wrote a blog on this subject today http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2006/06/google_competin.html
Don, I’m with you in the sense that Office provides ISVs, like myself, a growing platform to develop with. InkGestures Add-in for Word is but one example. And I agree that it will become a milestone of note when and if the number of Google Spreadsheets users surpasses those of StarOffice, however, focusing on this head-to-head comparison misses the _growing_ and _new_ uses that these online apps will find. Compare how ubiquitous online email services have become compared to the number of hosted email accounts there are. Think of all the online ads served around these email systems. It’s opportunities such as these that have me wanting to check out Google Spreadsheets.