Google Docs

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?

As you know, earlier GMail, Google Calendar and Google Docs supported offline mode in all browsers using Google Gears plug-in. But then Google decided to bet on HTML5 and abandoned its own proprietary plug-in. The Gears was quickly removed from the Chrome browser (in Firefox and IE it still works). And today Google developers were happy to announce that the offline mode for these apps in Chrome is back and it is implemented on HTML5. However, for an average user it will look no better than it was before: for offline access you still need to install an app (from the Chrome Web Store). In addition, the interface of the offline app is different from the usual web-based GMail interface. It looks lie GMail for iPad.

An open source software engineer, Mohamed Mansour, has created an extension for Google+ Hangouts - Hangout Pad for Google+, which allows you to collaborate on the text (or program code) while communicating in video chat. Although this extension is still to buggy, it's very interesting for several reasons. First, it doesn't use the official Google + API (because it doesn't exist so far). Hangout Pad is a plug-in for Google Chrome browser and embeds into Hangouts video chat using a complex hack (via Google Shared Spaces and Google Wave protocol). However, this tool shows the opportunities of expanding Google Hangouts (beware Skype!). The collaboration window (in this case the code editor) is located above the user video streams and it can contain anything. In addition, it is a cool demonstration of the future integration between Google Hangouts and Google Docs.

Perhaps this news won't make most readers very happy, but for editors of informational portals - it's a real holiday. Because every day they receive a lot of Emails with news from different vendors. And there are some PR-specialists, that not only sending news as attached word documents, but also pack them in archives. Reading these news is a pain. Now it will be much easier because Google Docs has added the opportunity to view archived documents without unpacking them. GMail users can open these archives directly from the email. Both Rar and Zip formats are supported.

Next week Microsoft will officially launch its online office suite Office 365, and of course, the major competitors, Google and Box.net, want to spoil this party. First, they have integrated their solutions. Now Box.net users can edit any stored document in the Google Docs online editors. In addition, they can (in just one click) create new documents in Box.net folders by opening Google Docs apps. Recall that Box.net also features the similar integration with Zoho Docs, so now users will have a choice. Box.net CEO, Aaron Levy, says that he played with the beta version of Office 365 and that it’s lacking the power and functionality of the bunch Box + Google Docs.

Quite a strange idea - to make a search plug-in for GMail and Google Apps - i.e. the services of the Search Giant. Nevertheless, the startup CloudMagic had enough courage to make it. And they've created really useful thing. Most people would say that the search in GMail - is great enough, and even if this CloudMagic gives search-as-you-type results - it's not the reason to pay attention to it. But the search speed - is not the greatest feature of CloudMagic. First, it shows search results in a popup widget - on top of the main GMail interface. So if you writing an email and need to find some information in the previous messages or docs - you don't need to save the email to drafts, open the search page, then view the search results one by one, copy something and go back to the email. Now you can (without closing the message) quickly find and copy what you need in the popup widget.

Jive is the champion on the enterprise social software market, and regarding the social functions (creating social connections, customer engagement, integrating the intranet with Facebook and Twitter) - it's the best of breed solution. But document collaboration tools in Jive leave much to be desired. Therefore, Jive is often used as a social layer in combination with Sharepoint or other collaboration solutions. But of course, Jive wants to fill this gap. Today Jive has acquired OffiSync - the document collaboration service. Recall, OffiSync - is a plugin + service, which allows almost real time collaboration on MS Office documents using Google Docs as the synchronization point. Recently, Google has released almost similar (and free) service Google Cloud Connect that could take OffiSync out of the market, so Jive's acquisition - is a great outlet for the start-up. Especially taking into account the price tag - $25-30 million.

Last week, Amazon launched the new online file storage service Amazon Cloud Drive. And taking into account reputation of Amazon, as the online storage market leader, this event, of course, deserves our attention. Let's consider the advantages and disadvantages of this service compared to key competitors. The main parameters - are shown in the table (below). It's turns out that the main advantage of Amazon Cloud Drive - if free 5GB account  with maximum file size of 2GB. However, its main drawback negates this advantage: you can not share this large file with anyone. Amazon Cloud Drive doesn't allow to share files publicly or protected by password. I.e. the only way of using this service - is a private storage for backup or enhancing your productivity.

"Great documents come from great discussions" - this idea inspired Google developers and they have created the new cool commenting system. At the moment it's available in Google Docs, but we hope that soon it will appear also in other Google services (Sites, Groups, Reader, Buzz ...). We can't say that it is something revolutionary but the developers took the best from Facebook, Twitter, somewhere else and created quite nice and convenient commenting system. First of all, it can be used as a context chat - in the right column near the document. Comments appear in real time and can be used to communicate with colleagues while editing the document.

Google Cloud Connect - the plug-in that allows to collaborate on a document in Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, synchronizing changes via Google Docs, is now available to all comers. Recall, it appeared in November last year, but until now was available only in paid Google Apps accounts. Google Cloud Connect, of course, is free, because its main goal - is enticing users away from MS Office to Google Docs. But it allows to move in the opposite direction - to edit your documents stored in Google Docs using the MS Office editors. The video above shows how the plug-in works. Our review of the Google Cloud Connect - is here.

Unlike the Google Wave team, nobody disturbs Google Docs developers, so they continue to add useful and not useful features to the suite. This time they changed the Google Docs interface in order to help users more easily manage lists of documents. They added a right pane with preview of the selected document and relevant information about it: history, versions and users who have access to it. The new Google Docs homepage now shows the most frequently used documents (an extension of the GMail Priority Inbox idea). The list of documents can be filtered by file type or you can show only images / videos (they are be displayed as thumbnails). For images the new slideshow-viewer has been added:

Online video is becoming the main format for training, promotional materials, as well as for the social content, important for team-building (e.g. corporate party videos). That is why providing shared access to video content in the intranet is an important task. Previously, only paid Google Apps users could use the service Google Video as an intranet video gallery. From now all Google Apps and Google Docs users will be able to share video in the intranet, because Google Docs gets youtube-like embedded video player. As you know, since the previous year it's possible to upload any file type (including video clips) to Google Docs. So now, these videos can be also viewed online instead of downloading and viewing on the desktop. The list of supported file formats can be found here. The max video file size is 1GB - the same as max storage limit in free Google Docs account. Probably, Google hopes that with this new tool users will much quicker reach the free storage limit and move to the paid accounts.

Google continues to use the fact that the main competitor of the new MS Office 2010 is not Google Docs but Office 2007/2003. "Why should I pay some hundreds of dollars for the new Office 2010?" - user thinking. "First, it has more beautiful buttons. Second, you can sync with online Office Web Apps" - says Microsoft. "Hey, you don't need to update! " - Google enters the conversation - "Now you can sync between Office 2003/2007 and Google Docs in real time." Today Google has introduced Cloud Connect - the plug-in that allows to open documents, spreadsheets and presentations from Google Docs in MS Office applications, edit them and save back. Moreover, multiple people can edit the same document simultaneously and Google will keep track of the versions and conflict resolution.

Google continues to prove all that mobile web-applications can work as good as mobile native apps. After the great mobile web-version of GMail, the company has updated the mobile web-version of Google Docs and added the ability to edit documents on the go. Previously it was possible only view docs on mobile devices and only a few mobile browsers allowed basic editing of Google Spreadsheets. From now you can create and edit spreadsheets and text documents on iPhone/iPad (version 3.0+) and Android (2.2+). And Android users can even enter text by voice (English only). The text input in the mobile version also supports English only. Other languages will be added later.

Google has demonstrated one more time that web applications can have as rich interface as desktop apps. The new chart editor in Google Docs (more precisely, in Google Spreadsheets) surpassed not only the similar tool in Zoho Sheet and Excel Web App, but also in the desktop editor Excel 2010. First, there is a new scalable timeline (like in Google Finance) which allows to zoom a certain time period on the chart. Second, now it's possible to create dynamic charts in the player (with the Play button and the slider), which allows to monitor chart changes over time. These interactive charts can be inserted on public sites and visitors can play with them rather than look at a static images. Of course, the data in the published chart is automatically updated when you change the values in the original spreadsheet.

Google has created a lot of innovative products, including GMail and Google Apps. Almost all progressive people enjoy and use them. But unfortunately, most office workers who use the paid versions of these applications - can hardly be called progressive. They are doing their job and want that mail and other business applications work in a traditional way and not to change. That is why, we see strange (but logical) things: Google rolls back innovations in order to please this paying majority. For example, GMail. Last year Google resolved the global problem with tags (because this paying majority got used to folders in Outlook). GMail tags began working like folders - with tree view, drag and drop feature. Today GMail adds an option to switch off the threaded view - that is, to remove the most convenient GMail feature. The similar process is taking place in the Google Docs:

At last Google (aka Search giant) has decided to make the search in Google Apps more convenient. We can't say that until now it was bad, but if you wanted to find an email - you had to open GMail, if you wanted to find a document - you opened Google Docs, etc. Thus, to get a full view about any client or task you had to collect data from various sources. Now GMail has added a new feature called Google Apps Search that allows to the search for documents from Google Docs and pages from Google Sites right inside your inbox (you can activate this feature in the GMail Labs). Unfortunately, this search does not include results from Google Calendar and Google Notebook. Unlike Google, Zoho was more fundamental in online office search. Early this summer it released Zoho Search, which is a separate service (like google.com) that can search in all major Zoho apps. As you can see, Zoho prefers to create new services, and Google is positioning GMail, as the primary user interface for all Google Apps applications.

Nothing can be hidden from inquisitive blogger eyes. In the Google Docs tutorial video, that Google employee published on YouTube, the new item in the "Create document" menu has been noticed. The new format is called Punch. One meaning of this word is a drink produced by mixing strong liquor or wine, fruit juice and spices. Thus, we can assume that the new format allows to create mixed documents which combine text, spreadsheets, forms and media content. Obviously, these documents are designed primarily for real-time collaboration, rather than for publishing or sending by email.

Google adds new office tools for working with documents. First is text recognition (OCR) in Google Docs - it can recognize text on images and PDF-files. Besides English, it supports French, Italian, German, Spanish. Second is the plug-in for viewing PDF files in the Google Chrome browser (you can add it on the page chrome: / / plugins). Thus, Google consistently continues its friendship with Adobe (after adding the default Flash support in Chrome).

We all remember the saga of GDrive - a mythical online file storage, which Google (as was supposed) developed within 2 years, and then it just added the opportunity to upload any files to Google Docs. Along with this opportunity, Memeo Connect (the service for syncing Google Docs with a local folder) appeared. It seemed that the dream about GDrive had come true. But sometimes details decide everything. Until now, to download a file to Google-account with Memeo Connect or to open file from there it was necessary to launch Memeo Connect software. Because of this little issue many Google users switched to DropBox. But today Memeo Connect has released version 2.0 and its main feature is GDrive - the local drive, which exists on your computer and works like any other local drive.

Today, Microsoft officially launched its Office 2010 for companies using the volume-licensing. For other companies and users the office suite will be available in June. The web-based version - Office Web Apps, that is the main new feature in Office 2010 and its main weapon in competition against Google Docs, will appear also in June. Google responded to the release in very original way - they used the fact that the main competitor to Office 2010 is actually not Google Docs, but Office 2007 (or 2003). The point is that why pay several hundred dollars for the new version of Office 2010 (+ Sharepoint 2010), if using Office 2007 in combination with Google Docs, you can get even more features at virtually no cost. Here is the comparison table, that was published in the Google Enterprise blog:

OffiSync - is a plug-in for MS Office editors, which allows you to save Office documents in your Google Docs account, and open them from it. I.e. the idea of the service - to combine the advanced functionality to MS Office with collaboration features in Google Docs. Since our last review, OffiSync added integration with Google Sites (i.e. documents from MS Office can be saved as attachments to a selected pages in Google Sites and opened from there). And yesterday the most interesting feature was unveiled - the ability to simultaneously edit document, while working in any version of MS Office (2003, 2007, 2010) or online Google Docs editor. Of course, it's not so cool, like in the new version of Google Docs, but it unites the users of both solutions.

When Microsoft demoed the Office Web Apps, we noted that nobody knows what will Google Docs look like when Office 2010 finally launch. MS Office Web will appear at least in 2 months and this question is still relevant. While Microsoft is fixing bugs in its web office, Google is constantly improving Docs. The new version of Google Docs features the significantly improved collaborative editing technology. It has a sidebar, which displays a list of users who are editing or viewing the document right now. On the same panel is chat. Each user is assigned a color and you can watch in real-time how your co-workers edit document (like in Google Wave or Etherpad). Moreover, this technology works in text documents and spreadsheets, and in the new Google Drawings.

Harmony, the new plug-in for MS Outlook by Mainsoft gave us a lot of positive emotions, which we want to share. First, is its video presentation, which is really cool. Secondly, Harmony - is really useful tool that allows to access and collaborate with documents stored in Google Docs or MS Sharepoint, without leaving MS Outlook. In particular, you can open and edit office documents directly in Outlook, search in docs content and share documents with co-workers instead of sending them back and forth. And it's not necessary that your co-workers have this plug-in installed and have Google Docs account - they just click the link in the email and the document will be shared to them automatically (for viewing or editing).

Perhaps, the Box.net owners were not very happy to know that Google Docs became an online file storage service, and thus, their rival. But their answer was not long in coming. Recently Box.net introduced universal Flash-based file viewer, which allows you to view almost any file stored in Box.net account online, without downloading it to your computer. This may be an office document, picture, flash, audio or video (over 20 file types). In addition, you can publish any file (in the flash-viewer) on your website or share it with certain employees or clients, so that they could view it and leave their comments. Perhaps it's the perfect solution when you want to send a presentation, technical documentation or design temlate to your customer. You don't need to worry that the client has specific software installed to open the file.

The soap opera about fabled GDrive (Google's online storage service) is finally over. As we expected, Google will not create a separate service. Instead, Google Docs allow now to upload any files and use them for online collaboration. Each account provides 1Gb free of charge. Additional memory can be purchased for $ 0.25/Gb per year. Google Apps users can purchase additional 5GB for $17 per year. Maximum file size is 250 MB. Many file types can be viewed online using Google Viewer (unfortunately, video is not supported). In addition, Google opened the Google Documents List API, which allows third-party applications to synchronize files with Google Docs or use it as an online file storage. There are already 3 useful applications using this API:

Just after EtherPad acquisition, Google buys another startup that works with office documents - DocVerse. This is a plug-in for MS Office applications, that allows to collaboratively edit documents in real time. DocVerse was created by former Microsoft employees. Whether users are working on a document online or offline, DocVerse will track, manages and sync all changes to merge them into one updated version of the document. You can communicate with other users via an IM feature within the plug-in as well. Why Google may need DocVerse? First reason - is to enable full compatibility with MS Office formats for Google Docs, and maybe even to add an option to collaboratively edit documents in Google Docs and MS Office. Second reason - is to use DocVerse technologies to build a desktop client for Google Wave. The purchase price is supposed to be around $25 million.

Still, Google should think about buying Zoho. And not in order to get rid of the competitor or to utilize Zoho services, but to attract this Indian developers team that can create 10 updates, while Google's team is working on one. For example, today in Zoho integrated Google Docs into its online services. No you can upload documents from Google Docs to Zoho Docs, attach documents from Google Docs to the records in Zoho CRM and Zoho Projects, view them in the Zoho editors and send Google documents in Zoho Mail emails. Why Google has not still implemented the ability to attach their documents to emails in GMail, and pages in Google Sites - it's not clear. Why Zoho integrates Zoho Docs, though its own document editors are even better - it's quite reasonable.