Google offers an alternative to MS Office
by Fred Roed on 24/02/07 at 9:26 am
3 comments
What are the chances anyone can take on Microsoft Office?
Pretty slim actually. At last count, MS had over 450million users worldwide. Apple users now have Office for Mac, so even the gay, arty crowd have moved over to the dark side. What is a would-be competitor do?
And so, we’ve listened with interest to the rumours that a new release from Google was imminent. Something that would cost a fraction of Office, but would be on par, quality wise. For SA small business, it’s really important. We had the discussion 2 years ago at World Wide Creative / Ideate / Live Alchemy studio whether we should have all-legal software, or should we toe the line’ a little bit. We made a tough (and very costly) decision to get legal. It was a killer, but we managed to do it – and since then, I’ve wondered about how average South African small business is able to pay Microsoft’s unavoidable fees.
So, here it is. Google have announced Google Apps for Small Business (Click here to check it out). We use Google Docs a lot in the studio and found it a little limiting compared to Office (which in truth is pretty good product)
However, after looking at the list of features, I like the simple straightforward approach of Google Apps. I especially like the start page, and the integration of Shared Calendars with Gmail. Take a tour, and tell us what you think.
Now, if only Google can come up with a decent graphics suite.
Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.
edbong
Feb 24th, 2007
I have been using Google Apps myself since August and quite like it. there have been some critical issues though.http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=4537
Anyway the best thing is the API… it makes the whole difference…
We are developing an FREE open source “business application platform” (think salesforce.com). Our first application is working tightly integrated with GOOGLE APPS. Check it out if you are interested. http://www.applicationexchange.com
Andrew
Feb 26th, 2007
Google Docs and Spreadsheets are great for certain purposes. We use them to store a list of everything that needs to be invoiced in a month. Our sales guys can check targets, and our admin guys have one list to work from. It is available anywhere, and multiple users can be working on it at the same time.
It is fine if you are just adding rows, but when you try and manipulate data the browser needs to send a message to the server, and this brings our slow internet connections into play. Last night I cut 3 cells and pasted them in the line above, and it took about 20 seconds for anything to happen.
I imagine for users in South Korea and the US this isn’t a problem, but for South African businesses, exclusively using a browser-based office suite is still a long-way off.
George
Sep 4th, 2009
You should also try SSuite Office for a free office suite. They have a whole range of office suites that are free for download.
Their software also don’t need to run on Java or .NET, like so many open source office suites, so it makes their software very small and efficient.
You may try these links:
http://www.ssuitesoft.com/index.htm
or
http://ssuite5element.webs.com/thefifthelement.htm