SkyDrive vs Google Docs

SkyDrive, Microsoft’s online storage service continues to take on Dropbox and add support for new platforms. Following the applications for Windows Phone and iPhone, Microsoft has released the desktop client for Windows and Mac OS (OS X Lion). Also, the SkyDrive's mobile interface has been optimized for iPad tablets. SkyDrive for desktop works in the usual way - it creates a folder on your computer and all the files that you copy to this folder are automatically synced with your online account, as well as with your other computers or mobile devices that are running SkyDrive. And if in the online account you create a shared folder for your work-group, the service will be continuously syncing files between the computers of co-workers.

This year, marketers in Enterprise 2.0 companies haven't prepared  well for the April Fools' Day, perhaps because it fell on Sunday. The only diligent company was Google, that released several April 1 products. One of them - is GMail Tap - the new app for mobile GMail, which allows to quickly type text with just two buttons - dot and dash (watch video above). At the same time Microsoft, which recently was very productive in funny videos, at that time only unveiled the new interface for the online file storage and sharing service SkyDrive - SkyCMD. It allows you to manage your files using the classic DOS-syntax and the command line:

So, Microsoft finally lost its fear of rival mobile platforms. Previously, the company launched the number of applications for the iPhone/iPad and even is working on the full-featured mobile Office for the iPad. And now it decided to make happy the Android users. Of course, it started with the apps for which being cross-platform is more important - the file storage SkyDrive and notebook/organizer OneNote. From now any files (including OneNote notebooks) can be synchronized between your Android-smartphone and your online SkyDrive account. However, there is a catch. While SkyDrive for Android - is completely free, the mobile OneNote app - is free only for up to 500 notes. After reaching this limit, you'll have to pay $4.99 (one-time fee) - and the restriction will be removed.

Microsoft continues to troll Google services with funny videos. At this time, they take on Google Docs. According to the scenario a group of young co-workers wants to creat a document and starts working on it in Google Docs. Naive guys don't know that Google Docs are only suitable for simple tasks and drawing a planetary system in Google Docs - is impossible. But it's possible in Microsoft SkyDrive. Even not in the Skidrive itself (it also can't do such complicated formatting) but in the desktop MS Office, that can edit the document simultaneously with the online SkyDrive editor. Note that Microsoft has removed the title Windows Live Office, which was used from the start to refer the online office, and now is using SkyDrive (that formerly was used to refer only the file storage).

After the recent Microsoft's announcement that it's working on Office for iPad (by the way, today OneNote has become available for iPad), today's launch of the SkyDrive app for iPhone is not very surprising. From now the SkyDrive users can access their files on the iPhone, open them, share to others, create new folders and synchronize files to the online account. The same application has appeared for Windows Phone 7.5 (watch the video below). And judging by some vacancies that Microsoft posts on the job-sites, the company is already working on the SkyDrive version for Android. Recall, SkyDrive offers free 25GB of cloud storage, which is much larger than its main competitors: Box.net, DropBox and Google Docs.

Microsoft has released an update fro its online collaboration suite Office 365, which includes 30 new features. The most important of them are support for Windows Phone 7.5, opportunity to edit documents stored in SharePoint Online on Windows Phone, Lync client for Windows Phone and Mac, ability to integrate Sharepoint Online with third-party applications (via SharePoint Business Connectivity Services), improved file uploading and sharing tools. Microsoft also made Office 365 available in 22 new countries including Argentina, South Africa and Taiwan. Together with Office 365 its free mass-market alternative SkyDrive has been updated. It also features the new HTML5-uploader an slick file sharing (that we have already mentioned). These new features, and the new file management tools are shown in this video:

When the MS Office Web Apps launched, only  the Excel Web App allowed to collaborate on online documents in real time. Now the trick is also available in the online Word. Though it's not so cool as in Google Docs. To let co-editors see your changes you have to click the Save button, then co-editors will see the notification in the status bar, then click Save and only then see your changes. There is no chat / comments like in Google Docs, but at least you can see who is currently editing every part of the document. Meanwhile co-authoring in the online Word works only in the free Windows Live Office (SkyDrive) and is not yet available in Office 365.

After (just) six years after the first rumors appeared Google has launched the legendary file storage service Google Drive. And the first question is: why they created Google Drive as a separate service, when Google Docs is de-facto Google's online storage that can store any files? There is a couple of reasons. First, such file storage and sharing services (Dropbox and clones) is a very hot topic either in consumer or enterprise space. And the attention that Google can attract with the new app in this space is not a bad thing for the search giant. Second, Google Drive will serve as a file system not only for Google Docs, but also for other Google's services that operate files (GMail, Google +, Google Sites, Picasa ...).

Remember the recent Microsoft's comic video about Google Apps? One of the claims against Google's online office was its bad spell-checker. But probably Microsoft won't joke about it any more. Because Google has pulled out its secret weapon - the world's largest search database that contains more words than any dictionary. You certainly noticed that when you make a spelling error in a search query, Google automatically corrects it? Now the same technology will work in Google Docs. Unlike the traditional dictionary (in Word), Google's base is constantly updated - adds new words and contains not only words but also names and titles in any language. However, meanwhile the new spell-checker is deployed only for English language, but Google promises to add it to other languages soon.

Google continues to improve its office suite and it's not trying to race with MS Office for the rich functionality, but improves what it does best - collaboration tools and mobile access. Today the new version of Google Docs for Android has appeared and it allows to collaboratively edit documents on smartphones and tablets in real-time. As usual, each user is assigned a certain color, so you can see who's editing text at the moment and where he is now. In addition, the new version improves the user interface features - zoom, copy/paste and adds new formatting tools: bold text, lists, font color. The good news is that all of these new features will work in older Android versions - up to version 2.1

Microsoft continues to troll Google services with funny videos. At this time, they take on Google Docs. According to the scenario a group of young co-workers wants to creat a document and starts working on it in Google Docs. Naive guys don't know that Google Docs are only suitable for simple tasks and drawing a planetary system in Google Docs - is impossible. But it's possible in Microsoft SkyDrive. Even not in the Skidrive itself (it also can't do such complicated formatting) but in the desktop MS Office, that can edit the document simultaneously with the online SkyDrive editor. Note that Microsoft has removed the title Windows Live Office, which was used from the start to refer the online office, and now is using SkyDrive (that formerly was used to refer only the file storage).

The popular online file storage service DropBox - is in danger. And this danger comes from Google Docs. The fact that before now DropBox had one great advantage over Google Docs - it could synchronize files between online account and several computers. Now this opportunity has become available for the users of Google Docs / Google Apps, and for free. Actually you need only to pay for disk space (over 1GB), but it's much cheaper in Google Docs than in DropBox. And all this - thanks to the startup InSync. It becomes free and not due to business problems, but right after almost $1 million funding. InSync runs almost invisible - you just create a folder on your PC or Mac and it syncs with Google Docs account (watch the video). Google Apps users can create shared folders for the entire company.

Google continues to compete with Zoho and SlideRocket for being the online presentations champion. Today Google rolled out completely new Google Presentations editor. It adds more than 60 new features, but the main one - is the ability to collaborate on a presentation in real-time. Everything is very similar to collaborative tools in Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets that appeared last year: in the right pane you can see who is currently working on the presentation, chat with them. And in the presentation view, you can see what objects the collaborators are currently editing (these object are highlighted with the corresponding colors). And with the help of Google+ Hangouts you can even video chat with colleagues while co-creating the presentation.

Lebanese developer's hack, which allowed text collaboration in Google+ Hangouts didn't remain a hack so long. Today's Google+ update has added much more new features to Hangouts. First, it's an opportunity to share your screen (Screen-sharing). Second, is the ability to collaboratively draw on a whiteboard. Third, is the ability to collaboratively edit Google Docs documents. Fourth, is the ability to create broadcasts for the unlimited number of viewers (the number of active participants is limited to 10). Fifth, Google Hangouts videochat now works on Android-smartphones. And finally, sixth, Google has opened the official API for Hangouts, so you don't need to hack it, as the Lebanese programmer in order to create your own application for Hangouts. By the way, the social network Google + is now open to all. Is your company ready for this?