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Are you ready for Google Office?

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Gmail is great, it's quickly become my primary email, some of its eccentricities an be slightly annoying sometimes (like a fun but maddening uncle) but it offers free pop access and well sir, I LIKE IT!!!!
 
Ghost said:
Im getting uneasy about google now, at least with microsoft you know where you stand (with their fist directly up your ass) what's googles angle....



To have their cocks directly down our throats?
 
90% of google's stuff so far has collected data for market research. Somehow I don't doubt this'll be any different--anyone want to start reading into their EULA's?
 
..So now they've collated everything personal users are doing with google desktop they want to start working out exactly what business' are doing with google office.



BUT WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
 
Collecting data would be completely useless to Google. The fact that you have video game-related material in your computer means nothing to them. What would they do... show you video game-related ads on your desktop?
 
dskillzhtown said:
Well...Isn't most of M$ money from Office made from enterprise or corporate buyers? I can't see too many companies using anything other than M$ Office.


I'm not sure what things are like in most corporations, but I work in the civil service and there was a big reluctance to move to MS products in the first place, and now there seems to be a big movement to move to open source where possible. If Google can capitilize on this, there may be a possibility for them to pick up some market share.


Also, I thought the idea of open source in general was gaining steam as of late? I mean, didn't IBM go open source for their products? They can't be the only ones not interested in feeding the beast, and who better to lead the charge than Google.
 
Ghost said:
..So now they've collated everything personal users are doing with google desktop they want to start working out exactly what business' are doing with google office.



BUT WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Exactly. I like what Google is doing, but like I said a few months ago, I'm a little wary of them now. What is their goal? Marketing and Advertising? What is the company vision/direction? Anybody here work for Google?
 
TheOMan said:
Exactly. I like what Google is doing, but like I said a few months ago, I'm a little wary of them now. What is their goal? Marketing and Advertising? What is the company vision/direction? Anybody here work for Google?

Their goal is world domination... no seriously... that's their goal.
 
Mihail said:
Collecting data would be completely useless to Google. The fact that you have video game-related material in your computer means nothing to them. What would they do... show you video game-related ads on your desktop?

Keyword pickups--see what kind of things are most used for different programs, sell that information to other companies. "Hey Microsoft! Word is mostly used to write love letters, no shit!"
 
myzhi said:
Said "almost" impossible. Maybe, you should think about what's need. Few random things: has to be stable, good performance, be secure, get companies to make billions of drivers, run millions of old and new applications, and etc. If it was easy, we would have tons of OS out there and M$ would be dead. We don't for good reason.

Linux? The only thing Linux doesn't have is the billions of drivers, and that has more to do with company affiliation and moneyhats than the software itself. And for the record, we do have tons of OSes out there. No one just has the clout to compete with microsoft. But oh wait! Google may.
 
jman2050 said:
1. MS's best product is Visual Studio. Any other answer is wrong.
2. I like what Google's doing, though I share a slight amount of caution.
3. MS won't go down easily. But if anybody can do it, it's Google.

Visual Studio is the WORST development environment in the entire market!
 
Mihail said:
Collecting data would be completely useless to Google. The fact that you have video game-related material in your computer means nothing to them. What would they do... show you video game-related ads on your desktop?



.....thats exactly what they do.
 
catfish said:
wait, did someone just rag on gmail? It's far and away the best free email there is. name a better one.

How about Yahoo which lets me sort emails by sender/subject/size, has better contact sync & import/export capabiities, has calendar features with sync, lets me view email from other POP3 accounts, includes vacation responses and signatures, etc.

The only negative is that it is only 1GB but thats enough for me.
 
CaptainABAB said:
How about Yahoo which lets me sort emails by sender/subject/size, has better contact sync & import/export capabiities, has calendar features with sync, lets me view email from other POP3 accounts, includes vacation responses and signatures, etc.

The only negative is that it is only 1GB but thats enough for me.

Well Yahoo isn't in Beta now is it! ;)

<runs away>

BTW you can view your gmail account via POP3 and you can export your Gmail contacts in to either a CSV with Unicode/UTF-8 or a CSV file that Outlook can read.
 
PlayStation Tree said:
I'm not sure what things are like in most corporations, but I work in the civil service and there was a big reluctance to move to MS products in the first place, and now there seems to be a big movement to move to open source where possible. If Google can capitilize on this, there may be a possibility for them to pick up some market share.


Well, at every corporation I have worked at, 5 and counting, MS Office has had a stranglehold on everything. It just makes sense. You are dealing with other companies, customers and you need to send out files to them. MS is pretty much universal and especially where I am now, if we migrated to something new or non-compatible we would be in a world of hurt.
 
dskillzhtown said:
Well, at every corporation I have worked at, 5 and counting, MS Office has had a stranglehold on everything. It just makes sense. You are dealing with other companies, customers and you need to send out files to them. MS is pretty much universal and especially where I am now, if we migrated to something new or non-compatible we would be in a world of hurt.

You've never worked for the US gov't.... some weird stuff be goin on at times with certain branches... and we have some vendors(non gov't) who still use Corel Office/Wordperfect as their standard... scary.....
 
jman2050 said:
I'd like to see you tell me why?

1) Code complete is STILL broken
2) No distributed build process
3) Poor GUI development environment
4) Poor UML design tools
5) Memory leaks galore - have you ever had to do several large builds and runs per day?
6) No escape analysis tools
7) No support for any "non Microsoft" language such as Java (not their bastard version), PHP, Python, Ruby, etc.
8) No schema browser/editor for databases
9) Poor multi workspace/project interface
10) Poor support for alternative version control systems (great support for theirs though)

I'll stop with those 10 for now. I have a laundry list of issues with Visual Studio.
 
DarienA said:
Well Yahoo isn't in Beta now is it! ;)

<runs away>

BTW you can view your gmail account via POP3

That's the killer for me. I don't want to open up a web browser everytime I want to view JUST yahoo since every other mail service works in other clients.
 
CaptainABAB said:
How about Yahoo which lets me sort emails by sender/subject/size, has better contact sync & import/export capabiities, has calendar features with sync, lets me view email from other POP3 accounts, includes vacation responses and signatures, etc.

Good lord I got your post backwards I thought you said view YAHOO mail via POP 3 not view other POP 3 accounts... my bad. Yahoo mail's free service doesn't allow you to via Yahoo mail via a POP3 client.
 
DarienA said:
You've never worked for the US gov't.... some weird stuff be goin on at times with certain branches... and we have some vendors(non gov't) who still use Corel Office/Wordperfect as their standard... scary.....


Wordperfect!?!!?
Dayum man.
 
I like Google, but I've also been very impressed by the recent steps taken by their competitors.

Examples:
Amazon.com -> OpenSearch
Yahoo -> Mail beta, Flickr, opt-in & public domain book scanning
Microsoft -> Office 12 usability focus

All of these things will benefit the consumer, and in my opinion they were all driven by Google's presence.
 
dskillzhtown said:
Wordperfect!?!!?
Dayum man.

Wordperfect has been advancing a lot over the years via its various owners. Corel Wordperfect Office 12 is actually really good - if you're willing to spend money on an office suite.
 
Phoenix said:
Wordperfect has been advancing a lot over the years via its various owners. Corel Wordperfect Office 12 is actually really good - if you're willing to spend money on an office suite.

I had thought Corel died years ago.
 
goodcow said:
I had thought Corel died years ago.

Nope www.corel.com as a matter of fact they acquired Jasc Software(Paint Shop Pro) late last year... looks like they've reinvented themselves as a graphics company though they still update and release the Wordperfect Office Suite.
 
Phoenix said:
1) Code complete is STILL broken
2) No distributed build process
3) Poor GUI development environment
4) Poor UML design tools
5) Memory leaks galore - have you ever had to do several large builds and runs per day?
6) No escape analysis tools
7) No support for any "non Microsoft" language such as Java (not their bastard version), PHP, Python, Ruby, etc.
8) No schema browser/editor for databases
9) Poor multi workspace/project interface
10) Poor support for alternative version control systems (great support for theirs though)

I'll stop with those 10 for now. I have a laundry list of issues with Visual Studio.


1 - hmmm...I guess I haven't run into the scenarios you have. Any examples?

2 - we use nant and I don't consider a "distributed" build tool part of the IDE - I'd rather have it automated on the server.

3 - compared to?

4 - check out Rational XDE. Myself, I prefer a stand-alone tool like Enterprise Architect.

5 - yes. I will say that it uses a good deal of memory but so does every dev tool...Eclipse, Oracle, TogetherJ. I haven't run into it "leaking" memory where it just increases and increases.

7 - fair point

8 - Whats wrong with the server explorer in 2003? Not only does it provide SQL Server browsing, db design, stored procedure edits but you can also use the Data Connections node to connect to any OLE DB database.

10 - we use SubVersion just fine with the free AnkhSVN addin. Again, it's not part of the default package, but you can download free add-ins for this and CVS, etc.

Like eclipse, it provides a good plug-in architecture so that takes care of many features that MS leaves out.

On the other hand, I can't think of another tool with a decent step-through debugger that lets me debug processes across multiple tiers and even into stored procedures in the same session.

To call it the "WORST development environment in the entire market!" is a little hard to take seriously. Apparently, you haven't used NetBeans.
 
CaptainABAB said:
To call it the "WORST development environment in the entire market!" is a little hard to take seriously. Apparently, you haven't used NetBeans.

:lol :lol :lol

so true...

I find myself spending too much time drawing interfaces with VS.net that I never get around to writing the code for.... :(

IMHO, for Java, it doesn't get any better than IntelliJ... eclipse is still too clunky for my tastes...
 
Well unlike the rumours there is no Google Office in the horizon. Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Google Inc. today announced an agreement to promote and distribute their software technologies to millions of users around the world. The agreement aims to make it easier for users to freely obtain SunÂ’s Java Runtime Environment (JRE), the Google Toolbar and the OpenOffice.org office productivity suite, helping users worldwide to participate in the next wave of Internet growth.

Under the agreement, Sun will include the Google Toolbar as an option in its consumer downloads of the Java Runtime Environment on http://java.com. In addition, the companies have agreed to explore opportunities to promote and enhance Sun technologies, like the Java Runtime Environment and the OpenOffice.org productivity suite.

“Google and Java are two of the most widely recognized technology brands because they provide users with online tools that enhance their lives on a day to day basis. The Google Toolbar offers useful Internet search services while Java enables richer interactive content. We look forward to exploring other related areas of collaboration,” said Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer of Google.

link
 
The announcement turned out to be nothing. Boring.
Oh well. With the way things are going now, Google makes the headlines monthly with an exciting new venture...so it's all good.

For those dissapointed with the lack of Google Office, I suggest you check out OpenOffice, which is a nice product in itself (that is FREE).

Google is a quirky company. Nearly 100% of their profits are still related to their ad programs - which are linked to Search. So, why are they so powerful?

In my opinion, it's because of their intellectual knowledge. The revenue, technology, and recognition they've gotten from their Search have allowed them to recruit the brightest and most innovative minds in the indusry, as well as some exciting acquisitions. Their policy to encourage employees to think outside the box doesn't hurt either.

Their interests and values are in line with the direction that the industry is heading as well (unlike MS). Open standards, web services, usability, etc....
 
jman2050 said:
Linux? The only thing Linux doesn't have is the billions of drivers, and that has more to do with company affiliation and moneyhats than the software itself. And for the record, we do have tons of OSes out there. No one just has the clout to compete with microsoft. But oh wait! Google may.


Forgetting about software and game support? Linux and any other OS is not even close to Windows in this department. When World of Warcraft 2 comes out with Linux support out of the box, we can talk about it within shooting range. Also, there's difference between tons of crappy OS floating around vs legit. Currently, only legit are Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux variations.
 
vitaflo said:
LOL @ "Google toolbar for IE only". Yeah, they're really switching people away from MS! :lol
isn't their toolbar built into firefox as standard in some way?
 
Phoenix, are you working at AOLTW? I worked at the AOL half for 3 years before I moved to a different company in Japan. How is everything going there these days? I've got a buttload of options that are semi worth something but I'm waiting for Parsons and the rest of those dudes to actually friggin do something to raise the price a bit....

Phoenix said:
Visual Studio is the WORST development environment in the entire market!

Making a statement like this makes you look silly. Everyone has an opinion but you can't really believe what you just said. There's tons of stuff out there worse than Visual Studio. If you are making any application that is not an enterprise server scale/type product Visual Studio is a totally acceptable environment. And that's coming form me a guy who does EVERYTHING in emacs most of the time.
 
myzhi said:
1) IBM had name outside computer, but didn't own rights to important part of hardware, ie CPU = Intel. This allow others to build PC clones.

2) Never had user friendly OS that everyone accepts.


These two combine made IBM unneeded overtime. With Windows monopoly, M$ has reign almost impossible to defeat. Making an OS is extremely hard. It has to be perform well, be stable, has tons drivers...

So when is Microsoft going to get around to stability?
 
If Google did take over the world, at least it'll be 1000% more stable, faster and overall just plain better than anything MS has given us.

And this is what MS needs, a fire under its ass. Let's just see if they actually do something good from this, such as improving its existing products, instead of just bitching.
 
jman2050 said:
You highly underestimate the capabilities of good software enginners. Making an OS that beats MS's is impossible? Fat chance.

No, Software Engineering is NOT the product, great UI design and ease of use of the product (great intuitivity) while mantaining lots of depth is not something pure programmers know or like to deal with.

Look Linux versus MacOSX (to stay in the 'NIX world) or MS Office versus current OpenOffice or even better at Visual Studio.NET versus Eclipse. It is not like it is impossible to do great UI and usability work and beat MS there, just that it is not just a programmer's coding ability thing.
 
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