I first speculated that Google has been creating a Microsoft Office Killer when they acquired Writely around 3 months back. But the recent limited public beta testing of Google Spreadsheets really proves that fact that they are in fact building a Microsoft Office Killer.
Some might argue that this is just hype and Web applications cannot compete with native Windows desktop applications. But I somehow feel that Microsoft Office has become more complex these days and may be only 15-20 % of the people really need those complex features but for others the Web counterparts may be enough. Apart from the simplicity the other huge factor is cost. Most of the people would be comfortable in viewing a couple of ads on their web applications rather than spending a fortune in buying their Desktop counterparts. Added to all these is that the document could be stored in Google’s Server itself which prevents you from frequent backup pain.
So here is a list of products from Google competing directly with Microsoft Office Applications
- Word – Writely
- Outlook – Gmail
- Calendaring (Outlook feature) – GCal
- Excel – Google Spreadsheets
- Frontpage – Google Pages
- PowerPoint – I am 99.99% sure that Google is currently creating a PowerPoint killer. It’s just a matter of time before it gets released.
Apart from the main Office applications here are other applications for which Google has a competing product.
- Picture Manager – Picasa
- MSN Messenger – Google Talk, Hello Messenger
- Windows Search – Google Desktop Search
- Internet Explorer – Google Tool bar and Google’s support for Firefox.
- Visio – SketchUP, a recent acquisition of Google
I think in the next couple of years (around the release of vista) there could be some stiff competition to gain the market share and as always it is we the users who are going to get benefited as a result of competition. Eagerly waiting to watch Microsoft’s next move. What do u say guys?
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Hi Sudar,
Nice article. Can’t agree with you more.
Believe you stopped by Zoho (Mike had mentioned us in his Google Spreadsheets article). We have a suite of online applications too. Just give them a try & tell us what you think.
Thanks,
Arvind
ps: Zoho is a brand of AdventNet & all of Zoho’s development happens in Chennai.
I dont think, they can come to the level of Desktop Apps. But who knows what might happen with XAML. The reason i am telling this is, i tried ZOHO, its simply too slow. My most used feature is Fill series, and i cannot find one there.
Lets see what google has in its store
Cool article…
Hi Arvind,
Thanks for the comment
To be frank I havenâ??t checked Zoho till I read about it from your comment. But I should say I am convinced by the first look itself. You guys have done really a great work.
Apart from it I got still more convinced when I read that all the development work has been done at here in Chennai. Congrats guys and keep up your good work.
@ Ramesh,
May be, but in the next couple of months could see lot of activity in this space.
@ Karthick
Thanks for stopping by and for the comment.
Sudar: Thanks for taking a look at Zoho & the positive feedback! And expecting your post on all the online spreadsheets compared.
Ramesh: We sure will try having the ‘Fill series’ functionality soon.
Thanks,
Arvind
Hi Aravind,
Nice to know that you guys are going to implement the â??fill seriesâ?? functionality, even I am found of it. 🙂
>>Eagerly waiting to watch Microsoftâ??s next move. What do u say guys?
Guess you haven’t installed Office 12 yet:):D
Yuvi,
>> Guess you havenâ??t installed Office 12 yet:):D
As You know, no time and no space in my Hard disk too..But will surely try it once I get some time.
Sure. Give it a try before tryin out the Online Spreadsheets Review;)
Hi,
We do have Fill series coming up. But if you want to copy similar formula to multiple cells, you can use Copy Paste (using Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V) to copy formulas relatively to multiple cells.
Regards,
Ramesh
Hi Ramesh
Nice to know that you guys are going to roll out Fill series soon. It will surely give ZohoSheet a big advantage when compared with others.