In case there was still any doubt about the long-rumored “GDrive’s” existence, a page now appearing on Google’s search results offers a pretty clear indication that something is going on. On Writely.com – the online word processing service Google acquired in 2006 – a test page is now appearing with a title that reads “test page for Platypus (GDrive).”
Well, there you have it. → Read More
About a month ago, some additions to the code in Chromium (the open source browser behind Chrome) suggested that the long-fabled “GDrive” may be on the verge of actually launching. A week later, user-facing proof started appearing. Then earlier today, sharp-eyed social media consultant, Johannes Wigand, spotted something interesting during a presentation at a Google-sponsored event: something that sure looks a lot like Google Drive.
And it is.
Over the past month, we’ve been able to dig up more information about Google Drive. First of all, it is very real. And it is being used internally at Google. Of course, it was also real back in 2007 and 2008 before it was eventually killed. But talking to employees back then who saw and used the service all agreed that it was pretty wonky and not ready for prime time. This new version is expected to be much better. → Read More
Amid all the big announcements at this year’s WWDC keynote, there was an undercurrent that was subtle, but important.
“It just works.” Steve Jobs kept saying this over and over again on stage. When Jobs does this, it’s never an accident. It’s a message.
And it’s a message that was underscored by another word. “Automatically.” Jobs must have said it a couple dozen times during the keynote.
So what is the message? → Read More
While it hasn’t always been clear just how big of a bet Google was going to make on Chrome OS, after Google I/O today, it seems very clear that they’re very serious. With the launch of Chromebooks, Google is aiming to strike right at the heart of Microsoft and the Windows stronghold. But they know that one big hold up remains before a browser-based OS can be everywhere: offline access.
With that in mind, on stage today, Google’s Sundar Pichai revealed that Google has internally been using offline versions of their three most popular apps for months now: Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. And this summer, all users will be able to use these apps offline too. → Read More
For years, we’ve been hearing that the future of productivity is in the cloud. But while visions of real-time collaboration leave technophiles like me starry-eyed, it’s a prospect that means one thing to millions of people: leaving the familiar turf of Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007 so that they can learn their way around yet another application, not to mention some pricey upgrades. But Google wants to let you have it both ways.
Today, Google is launching a new plugin for Microsoft Office called Cloud Connect, which will tie Google Docs directly into the ubiquitous productivity suite, free of charge. Editing a document in Word? It’ll automatically sync to your Google Docs account each time you hit ‘Save’. Want to share a preview of your document without worrying about what file format your coworkers can open? Just send them a link to the Google Docs file. The plugin supports Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, and it’s a big deal for Google’s strategy with Docs. The new product is going live for Apps for Business customers today as part of a preview program (sign up here); everyone else will get it soon. → Read More
There’s a new mystery on the web today. In an otherwise boring video about “Google Lookup in Google Docs,” the search giant appears to have inadvertently revealed a new Google Docs product called “Punch.” So what on Earth is it?
The blog Google Operating System (which spotted the feature) has its guess: “Maybe Google Punch is a free-form document that lets you combine data from other documents, spreadsheets, presentations and forms.” ReadWriteWeb expands on that a bit for a similar guess: “Perhaps a Punch is a mix of functions and content intended for collaboration, more than for posting publishing like Google Pages is.” Both sound plausible, but we have another guess. → Read More
You can definitely call me an Apple fanboy: I’ve bought practically every device that Steve Jobs has made since 1985—when I got my first Macintosh. I own an Apple TV, several iPods, a Macbook Pro, a Macbook Air, an iMac, two iPhones, and two iPads (one was a gift). For various reasons, I need to use Microsoft Outlook and Windows, so I run these in a virtual machine on my Mac. But this fanboy is listing his iPads for sale on Craigslist. Why? Because they’ve become like the paperweights on his desk. I just don’t use them.
When the iPad was first announced, I predicted that it would be a game changer. I touted, to my Twitter followers, that grandma would soon be able to tell her cable company to take back its cable modem. She would no longer have to deal with the complexities of configuring Wi-Fi connections on her router. All she would need in order to surf the web and check email is the $15/month AT&T 3G service. Junior would soon be able to traverse new virtual worlds and learn world history while playing games on this slick new device. I also expected that I wouldn’t need to carry around my bulky laptop; instead I would have a device that provided almost the same features as my laptop, but had the elegance and simplicity of an iPhone. I really believed that this cool new device would solve the world’s technology problems and reduce the number of electronic gadgets I had to carry around. → Read More
Slowly but surely, Google keeps trying to chip away at Microsoft’s core Office productivity suite with Google Docs, its free online word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software. Today, Google Drawing is being added to the mix and Google Docs and Spreadsheets is getting a major realtime update. Both are being announced at Google’s Atmosphere event.
Google Drawings is not really a drawing app, it’s more of an online whiteboard. The app is designed to help people visualize ideas through flow charts, diagrams, and stencils. There is a chat window where participants can chime in. Images can be imported and moved around. But sadly there is no freehand drawing option. The real news, though, is that Google Docs and Spreadsheets is getting more realtime. → Read More
Google’s recently announced $25 million acquisition of DocVerse represented one saga of an ongoing war between Google and Microsoft over dominance in the productivity suite place. Today, Israeli enterprise software company Mainsoft is launching a Docverse-like plug-in that may up the ante in the battle. Harmony is launching free plug-ins that bring Google Docs documents and Microsoft SharePoint document libraries directly to Microsoft Outlook.
Once downloaded, Harmony for Google Docs will open in a sidebar pane within Outlook. The new Harmony sidebar enables people to share a single, centralized copy of the document, eliminating the many intermediary steps associated with sending e-mail attachments back and forth. The plug-in allows users to locate, share, and work on Google documents directly from their email client. → Read More
Tonight is the 82nd annual Academy Awards. Some people watch the show for the movies. Some watch it for the glamor. And some, watch it to gamble. And Google is making that easier than ever.
While the show is almost always way too long, one way to get into it is to have an Oscar pool, where everyone picks who they think will win in each category. Google has set up a special Google Docs template that allows you to easily create this pool and send it to all your friends. It’s so simple, that you can even set it up to be filled out right within an email. → Read More
Zoho is undoubtedly the lesser known name and an underdog in the productivity suite race with Google and Microsoft. But the startup has a compelling strategy: Zoho continuously launches integrations with its competitors and also iterates on it product to offer new and innovative products. Previously, Zoho has launched various integrations with Google sign-ins and with Google Apps. Today, Zoho is launching a full integration between Google Docs and Zoho’s Apps.
Google Docs users can now attach files from Google Docs to Zoho’s CRM within Leads, Accounts, and Cases of Zoho CRM. When users try to attach a document from Google Docs, they will be prompted to authenticate using Google credentials. Google Docs will be listed within Zoho once users sign-in. → Read More
Collaboration on editing documents and spreadsheets is becoming a key feature in productivity suites with the emergence of Google Docs, Zoho, Etherpad and others. Even Microsoft is adding collaboration features to Excel in its new version of Office. While Microsoft is adding this limited functionality to its new version of office, DocVerse offers a plug-in for Word, PowerPoint and Excel that lets you collaborate with other users when editing a document.
Once downloaded, the DocVerse plug-in will appear on the right-hand sidebar of any Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and Excel file. You can invite other users to collaborate with you, and once all partied have downloaded the plug-in, you can share documents with each other. Whether users are working on a document online or offline, DocVerse will track, manages and sync all changes to merge them into one updated version of the document. You can communicate with other users via an IM feature within the plug-in as well. → Read More
Sharing a document online is not something many people do yet. And for those of us with our toes in the water, it is usually a one-off thing. You want to share a spreadsheet around a single event, or are working with someone outside your organization. But as you get used to it, you become more comfortable and start using Google Docs more frequently or find one or two people who really like to work that way. At least that is what Google is hoping will happen, which is why it is making it easier for power sharers to use Google Docs by sharing entire folders. You can also now bulk upload multiple documents at once, instead of doing it one by one. → Read More
Google has been aggressively marketing Google Apps to schools, recently launching a centralized site designed to recruit universities and colleges. Now, Google is tweaking Google Docs, which is a part of Google Apps’ productivity suite, by adding a few student-friendly features.
Google Docs has added an equation editor so students can actually complete math problems within a document, allowing students to not only write papers that include numbers and equations but also take notes from quantitative classes using Google Docs. Google has also added the ability to insert superscripts and subscripts, which can be useful for writing out chemical compounds or algebraic expressions. → Read More
Google Docs has changed the landscape of computing office suites. By moving everything to the cloud, accessing documents is easier now than it ever has been. But unlike a lot of the other things Google is working on, Google Docs isn’t particularly social. Socialwok, a startup that won the demopit competition today at TechCrunch50 adds a great social layer to Google Docs.
Right now, if you want to share a document via Google Docs, most people do it by emailing it to other users. The process to do this is very clunky — even though Google obviously runs not only Google Docs, but a hugely popular email service, Gmail. If you try to IM a document to someone, you either have to make it fully public, or put a persons email address in to make sure they’re on a safe list for that document. Socialwok simplifies all of this immensely because its a social network that wraps around these documents. → Read More
Microsoft and Google have seen their rivalry kicked up a notch in recent weeks. First, Google announced Chrome OS, the company’s first operating system. Then Microsoft announced the new version of Office with major cloud app support. Then Microsoft announced its deal to take over Yahoo’s search business. Starting today, Google is back on the offensive, with a major promotional campaign to get the word out about organizations switching to Google apps for their daily computing needs.
The campaign, called “Going Google,” has a very clear target: Microsoft Office. A series of advertisements [disclosure: including on this blog] will begin touting how and why some 3,000 organizations are signing up to use Google apps each day. But the crown jewels of this campaign will be billboards on four major U.S. highways that will give a new message about Google apps everyday for a month.
The billboards will be placed on the 101 in San Francisco, the West Side Hwy in New York, the Ike in Chicago, and Mass Pike in Boston. Google says that the vinyl being used to create these new messages each day will be recycled or reused into either computer bags or shopping bags. → Read More
AppJet’s EtherPad, the real-time Google Docs-like wiki tool we wrote about last fall, has been upgraded to be prettier, more user-friendly and far more collaborative than before. EtherPad was the brainchild of former Googlers (who founded online programming tool and Y Combinator funded AppJet) who wanted a real-time, yet group oriented way to collaborate on notes and documents. Thus, EtherPad was born. We have 100 free beta invites to the premium version of EtherPad here.
When we first reviewed EtherPad, we found the web-based rival to Google Docs to be sore on the eyes but incredibly useful. What made EtherPad unique from the start was the ability to have multiple people making edits and writing in a document in real-time. You simply create a document, send the link around, and anyone can join. Each user’s edits are highlighted in a different color (with a key featured on the side with which color belongs to each user). Changes are made in absolute real time, something even Google hasn’t been able to do (Google docs update every fifteen seconds). Users can also chat in the sidebar and save versions of documents forever. → Read More
On the Google Docs blog today, the company took the time to make a non-announcement. Basically, there’s a bunch of words that bury the real story: That Google Docs will soon be launching a “brand new shiny interface.”
Hmmm. I wonder why. Obviously, earlier this week Microsoft laid out its plans for Office 2010, which includes a web-based component meant to take on Google Docs. But once again, there is nothing to actually see right now from Google, instead this is a pre-announcement to let users know that they may be seeing wonky elements over the next few weeks as they tweak things on the fly. → Read More
The timing of Google’s announcement of Chrome OS was curious. I don’t mean the fact that Google moved up the post on it by a day when some details leaked out, I mean the fact that they were announcing it on some seemingly random date in July, well before anything is actually ready to show off. Now, we likely know why.
On Monday, Microsoft is set to unveil its plans to counter the attack Google previously had launched on it with Google Docs. Yes, Microsoft Office is going to the cloud. This is something which we all knew was eventually coming, and there is already some limited functionality, but the full details will pour out Monday at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. You can expect the new version of Office, that syncs with the cloud, and the ability to use it in the cloud without any software as well. → Read More
Security consultant Ade Barkah checked in with us to alert us to a couple of serious security issues associated to Google Docs, the web-based office software from the world’s most famous search engine company, giving a whole new meaning to its mission to make the world’s information universally accessible. On his blog on software, infrastructure and security, Barkah outlines no less than three issues that he discovered while investigating some potential security lapses.
Since he did the right thing by contacting Google about his findings (only to receive no response after five business days), we’re hoping that this article will help trigger the company’s engineering team to plug the holes asap. In case you missed it, earlier this month we uncovered some major privacy blunders going on with Google Docs, which the company later confirmed and fixed (we pinged them for this too).
Update: Google has published its stance on these issues on the official Docs blog (they don’t believe there’s a significant security risk)
So what’s up?
(read on after the jump) → Read More
