Google Office Suite Complete. Now What?

Google added to their online office suite that capability to create presentations.  Previously they had the online word processor and spreadsheet.  Now they've launched a competitor to Microsoft's Powerpoint.  I've been using the presentation tool in the last 2 days to create a presentation I'm giving this afternoon.  Yes, that is brave thing to do, but I wanted to stress test the tool in a real world setting.  If you are asking yourself the question "what advantage does this online suite of tools bring?" watch the video below, then join me after the jump for a little discussion on this.

The potential value in this type of office productivity suite is huge (I think) but there are two major obstacles that need to be overcome.

1) Inertia:  people are already invested in MS Office in a huge way.  That will take time to overcome.  Not just time, from the sense of people needing to come to grips with the new paradigm of how an online office suite would work, but also time in terms of having enough of a critical mass for it to make sense.  If I'm the only one using Google's online office in my company, then it becomes harder for me to easily share work with my colleagues. 

2) It's Online:  the great strength of this suite of tools is that they are online and allow for all the benefits talked about in the video above. This strength though is also the online tools' weakness.  What about when I want to work on a document and I'm not online?  Perhaps I'm on a flight?  I think Google has full intention to overcome this.  I can see that through the use of their Google Gears.  For example, the Google RSS reader (http://reader.google.com) is a good online reader.  With Google Gears installed, I can make that online content available offline.  That is what has to happen to the office suite Google has launched.  There needs to be a way for me to work on documents offline, and then have those changes reflected automatically when I'm online again.

Will these two barriers be overcome?  I think so.  Will it happen fast enough that Microsoft won't try and move their Office suite to the web first?  That part I'm not so sure off.

To explore Google Docs for yourself, just click here.

Comments

[kalivd]

I think google is launching the online office pretty late though cos there are many other online office suite one of them which i m personally using called eDeskOnline cos it is highly productive and easy to use infact i find it easier than google docs and other online applications...

http://www.edeskonline.com