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.