October 11, 2006

Google Docs & Spreadsheets



The obvious has happened. Writely and Google Spreadsheets have merged and the new products is named, not Google Office, but Google Docs & Spreadsheets. The strange name will probably be modified, as Google Docs & Spreadsheets & Presentations is just not a catchy name.

The good news for those who hated Writely's interface is that the unified interface is similar to Google Spreadsheets'.

Also now you can let collaborators invite other people. "The people whom you've invited can now add other collaborators to that spreadsheet. You can decide whether you want this capability turned on for each spreadsheet individually - the default for new spreadsheets is to allow collaborators to add other collaborators."

The next logical move would be to add a new web application for presentations and to integrate all these applications with Gmail, Google Calendar and Picasa Web, so they can share attachments, photos and documents. Some pieces of the puzzle are still missing, but Google can't deny they don't want to build Google Office.

7 comments:

  1. This is awesome, i'm actually using it just now to write a report, thats how awesome it is! hehe

    Whats even better is that you can even add blog entries through this.
    You can go to settings and set it up, now thats just 10x more awesome!

    Theres just not enough meaning behind awesome to show how awesomely awesome this really is!

    AWESOME!

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  2. Google DSP is not such a bad name. Though it is about time they combined them into an office package. Great news.

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  3. I just wrote a report before they merged! Monday!

    Good thing, I really dislike the new style.

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  4. I liked Writely! How do I get back Writely's charming look n' feel?

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  5. How to get the old Writely? Maybe this will help.

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  6. This stuff is a good start but lots of bugs involving formatting and random insertions of odd characters when cutting an pasting. The spreasheets are difficult to adapt to as well and at first glace have odd behavior and inconveniences. I will use these products only for the most basic spreadsheets and documents needed in a pinch.
    Keep working on it though - the concept is great

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  7. In the marketing world we call if "benefit orientation." It means I long to hear about a product named "Google Expressions" for words, numbers and images, not "offfice" which is a place (and thing) nobody wants to be.

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