Tonight Google unveiled its online Calendar. As usual whenever Google releases a product these days, it prompted me to ponder the Google Office 🙂 I’m convinced it’s around the corner, so I decided to check Google’s progress on this ‘Moby Dick’ – the Great Web Office! More on my ZDNet blog, but here’s the table I came up with:
| Web Office Element | Does Google have it? | Status |
| Yes – Gmail | The best and most innovative web email system around. Gmail recently turned 2 years old, so it’s a mature and dependable product (despite still having the ‘beta’ label!). | |
| Calendar | Yes – Google Calendar | Brand new, but looking good and playing nicely with Gmail already. |
| Web processing | Yes – Writely and whatever else Google has been cooking up behind closed doors | Early stages – Writely was the best of breed among web-based word processors in my recent review, but it’s still very early in the innings for word processing on the Web. |
| Spreadsheet | Not that we know of | There are some great solutions on the open market currently: JotSpot Tracker, NumSum, iRows. Perhaps a Writely-like acquisition is on the cards from Google in this space, unless Google is working on their own app. |
| Presentations (i.e. Powerpoint competitor) | Not that we know of | I didn’t uncover many web-based presentation apps in my Best of Breed post, but I was informed afterwards that a few folks are working on it. |
| Database (i.e. Access equivalent) | Maybe – Google Base? | Google Base is Google’s growing database of structured data, so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they’ll use it for this purpose in a Web Office suite. |
| Web design | Google Page Creator | Well, it’s a start… |
| Project Management | Not that we know of | Your guess is as good as mine. |
| RSS | Google Reader | A solid product that will likely be integrated into Gmail at some point – as Yahoo has done with RSS and Microsoft will in Vista. |
| Desktop management | Google Desktop | OK not technically an ‘office’ application, but Google Desktop – which integrates search on the Web with desktop – will be a key part of any Google Web Office system. |
Originally published on ReadWriteWeb (archived copy)