After Gmail, Google Talk and Docs and Spreadsheets, speculation is rife the group may develop a suite of desktop applications, writes John Collins
There has been wild speculation for a couple of years now, particularly in the online world, that Google will go head to head with Microsoft by launching its own operating system.
When the company introduces new products such as its web-based Gmail e-mail service; the Google desktop that enables users to search their own PC as well as display content from their PC and the web in a sidebar; and its Google Talk application for instant communications, all of which compete directly with Microsoft, speculation mounts that it will go the whole hog and produce a complete suite of desktop applications.
The Google service that got most tongues wagging was Docs and Spreadsheets, which allows users with a Google account to create and store their own word-processing and spreadsheet documents online. But Bill Kipp, recently appointed consumer operations manager with Google Europe, insists that Google is "not trying to replace Excel and Word; it is another tool that gives you control over how information is shared".
Google's thinking is that most of the information we use ultimately travels over the web to be shared with co-workers, friends or clients, with very little data being created and then confined to your personal computer. The idea behind Docs and Spreadsheets is to make that information accessible on the web at a much earlier stage in the lifecycle by allowing people to create the documents online at http://docs.google.com.
Both the word processor and spreadsheet tools look familiar to anyone who has Microsoft Office, Open Office or the other productivity suites on the market.
By having the documents online from the outset, Google believes it gives users more control over how others use those documents. For example, two people working on one document don't have to e-mail it back and forth or worry about merging their revisions - the version of the document you are working on is the latest one, although it is possible to roll back to previous versions. If changes are made to information by two users, the conflict is highlighted.
In the spreadsheet application it is also possible to e-mail other people and ask them to have a real-time chat about information in the document. For regular travellers, the advantage of storing your documents online is that you don't necessarily have to have your laptop with you. You can simply use any computer with a web connection to access the information. But while Google insists it has a high level of security around the service, it would probably be advisable not to upload highly confidential company documents to the service.
Docs and Spreadsheets can import documents in a range of formats, including Word, Excel, comma-separated values, PDF and Open Document Format. It is also possible to save the information in a number of formats, including PDF.
But the Achilles' heel of Docs and Spreadsheets is that you can't continue to work on your information if your internet connection goes down, although data is automatically saved in this scenario. Docs and Spreadsheets is far from perfect - the number of fonts that can be used is limited and some users have reported problems when using browsers other than Firefox or Internet Explorer - but it does fill a gap for a growing number of web users.
The question also remains over how Google will ultimately make Docs and Spreadsheets pay for itself. The official line from Kipp is that Google is "actively considering many different ways to monetise all our products".
The challenge for Google is that while it is relatively easy to choose a set of features that will appeal to a large number of users, it is almost impossible to include everything that each individual will require - just ask Microsoft.
"They are useful tools but there are times when you need a different feature set," concedes Kipp. As if to underline the point, his own presentation was created and displayed using Microsoft PowerPoint (In the days before Kipp was speaking, online bloggers carried details of a document that suggested Google was creating a presentation tool to rival PowerPoint).
Despite the insistence that Google is not directly targeting Office with Docs and Spreadsheets, the slide that Kipps displays, showing Gmail as a hub for content, collaboration and communication thanks to its links to other applications such as Google Calendar, Google Talk and Google Maps, would certainly have Microsoft executives concerned.
