Google adds collaboration support to Microsoft Office

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2011/02/google-cloud-connect-for-microsoft.html

by hvasishth • 15 years ago

38 17 15 years ago

googledocs.blogspot.com

makmanalp• 15 years ago

Uh oh, app takeover. I don't know how Microsoft is going to react to Google adding a crucially missing feature in Office and leveraging its software for its own purposes.

kenjackson3• 15 years ago

Maybe this will motivate them to get their rears in gear. The fact that they've had SkyDrive and various sync/mesh technologies, yet haven't done this is downright embarrassing.

I suspect MS thought they could do this in the enterprise via SharePoint first. I think now they'll have to change their plans.

r00fus• 15 years ago

I've been told by a friend who happens to work for MS that they've had this stuff working for years, but it's just been more lucrative for them to not include it (another clue that they have an entrenched monopoly in Office software).

Just like Google ChromeFrame and IE9, I hope this pushes the Office folks to release something better so the Google "barnacles" don't destroy their platform.

contextfree2• 15 years ago

Er? I thought they already did add sync with SkyDrive and co-authoring (at least in Word and Powerpoint) in 2010?

WalterGR• 15 years ago

I don't know how Microsoft is going to react to Google adding a crucially missing feature in Office and leveraging its software for its own purposes.

If Google isn't using undocumented APIs, then they're doing exactly what Microsoft wants: developing software that "plugs in to" the Microsoft ecosystem.

thematt• 15 years ago

Except in this case it serves as a bridge to use something other than the Office suite to edit documents, which could be problematic for Microsoft and not necessarily something they want.

bpodgursky• 15 years ago

It's not a missing feature. Microsoft office has almost-full-featured in-browser document editing (http://www.officelive.com/en-us/). It actually has a really slick UI (like the desktop office), and more importantly to me, works perfectly on Linux.

Edit: as another commenter mentioned, it also has co-authoring; not as slick at google docs at chatting, but it worked well for me.

CrazedGeek• 15 years ago

Many of you have also asked about availability for Macs. Unfortunately due to the lack of support for open APIs on Microsoft Office for Mac, we are unable to make Google Cloud Connect available on Macs at this time. We look forward to when that time comes so we can provide this feature to our Mac customers as well.

In case all you want is to access your documents as files: http://code.google.com/p/google-docs-fs/

gduffy• 15 years ago

Congratulations DocVerse! What an awesome group of people.

For those who don't know them, Google acquired them last year presumably to build exactly this.

From my experience, integrating with MS Office/Outlook APIs is no walk in the park, so syncing with Docs is friggin' amazing.

dayjah• 15 years ago

Ahh, I was wondering what was powering that. Thought it might have been an evolution of the etherpad stack.

Oh how I miss etherpad.

techjohn• 15 years ago

How does this functionality compare to the upcoming Office 365?

sebastianavina• 15 years ago

I think dropbox it's not going to be acquired by google...

Google adds collaboration support to Microsoft Office

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