Creating Google Office?

by **Spirit of Me** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 8:21 pm

Google and Sun Microsystems will hold a press conference on Tuesday at which they're expected to announce a collaboration to bring StarOffice productivity applications to Google users. (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation etc.)

MS is going to have to do some price lowering if they are going to have to compete these days?

What do you guys think?

by **cavalierlwt** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 8:59 pm

Are we talking web based word processing? I've never been a big believer in web based word processing. MS has such an unbelievable lock on the office suite world. Be if FUD or just habit, MS Office is truly sitting in the driver's seat. Where I wonder if they will run into trouble is giving people a compelling reason to keep upgrading Office. I haven't changed since Office XP came out, and don't see any reason (for myself) to put any more money into it.

by **deathBOB** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 10:20 pm

I agree Cavalier. I have Office 2002 and have no reason whatsoever to upgrade. Maybe I would as a business user, but as a student I use whatever I have. If I could get the same thing free from Google rather than paying...

by **King** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 10:23 pm

Originally posted by deathBOB
I agree Cavalier. I have Office 2002 and have no reason whatsoever to upgrade. Maybe I would as a business user, but as a student I use whatever I have. If I could get the same thing free from Google rather than paying...

Isn't it really expensive to upgrade office? I always thought it cost an arm and a leg to upgrade, and thats something as a student you definitely need.

by **LordShard** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 10:30 pm

Originally posted by Kingofbeers
Isn't it really expensive to upgrade office? I always thought it cost an arm and a leg to upgrade, and thats something as a student you definitely need.

It does. Office 2k4? Cost me $300 I think it was for the full version with MS Access.

by **=ender=** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 10:49 pm

If they set a good pricepoint and it has the ability to use existing file formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt, etc.) then I would most definitely be interested. I'm a big fan of another company rising up to challenge the biggest software corporation out there. Problem is anything Google creates really needs to be compatible with already existing and popular file formats.

Similar idea with an OS... if Google were to create one, it would have to be able to be compatible with the casual user's existing software. Ask any casual PC user and you'll be hard pressed to find a Linux user. Ask someone who knows a decent amount about computers (any of the gamers here, I bet) and you're sure to meet someone who uses it. In order to be really successful, Google has to create a product that the everday, casual user will consider.

So far, Google has done some neat stuff: from their web search algorithms to creating a free wifi network in San Francisco. If they continue with their success... who knows. Maybe their Office product will be good enough for the casual user to consider. I certainly hope so. I imagine they'd try and sell it to major computer manufacturers like Dell, Gateway, HP, etc. for the manufacturer to include the bundle in new systems. If they could do that, that would be the clincher, I'd think.

by **cavalierlwt** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 11:06 pm

They sell student/teacher versions of Office for about $120 or so. It's Word, Excel,Outlook,Powerpoint. Fully funtional, not a 'lite' version or anything, just no MS Access.
As for OS's, Next year Apple starts using Intel processors. I'm not putting down linux, but OSX is a closer match to Windows XP as far as all around user experience, for the average user. Next year could be a very interesting year for Apple, especially if (as pretty dependable rumors have it) a person will be able to run Windows natively on an Apple pc, as well as OSX.

by **TChicken** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 3:23 am

Originally posted by =ender=
If they set a good pricepoint and it has the ability to use existing file formats (.doc, .xls, .ppt, etc.) then I would most definitely be interested.

Open office does that now. It's free, and pretty good at opening MS formats. Not perfect though... microsoft wont tell them the file format info, so I can't see too many businesses swithing over yet.

by **=ender=** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 7:54 am

Good point, TChicken. And the part about Micro$oft doesn't surprise me... only makes sense, I suppose. Proprietary intellectual rights, right? But, I guess to further define what I meant, in order for Google to make money off of an Office product, two things they would need to do would be (1) using the same file format and (2) selling the product to manufacturers to be included as a bundle in new hardware. Since it doesn't sound like #1 will happen, then I doubt #2 would fall into place. If they're efforts are similar to Open Office and to offer it for free, then you know what? I'll probably download and use it.

Haven't tried Open Office. I may have to play around with it when I get home. Hmm... take that sentence out of context and it doesn't sound right. :lol:

by **cavalierlwt** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:05 am

Proprietary file formats...
That's a good idea. I might just make my own proprietary file system. If my boss asks for a big report, I'll just give him the file formatted in my own personal format, and tell him it's the HelpDesk's problem if he can't open it.

by **Chacal** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 11:30 am

Next version of Office should use XML files. The file format won't be proprietary anymore.

by **Spirit of Me** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 1:51 pm

It's offical.

Read about it here.

BTW:

What is the difference between StarOffice and OpenOffice

StarOffice, is a brand owned by Sun Microsystems. Both StarOffice and OpenOffice have the same roots, the original
StarOffice package by StarOffice AG. After the acqusition of StarOffice AG by Sun Microsystems, the project forked and
OpenOffice was born.
The term forking is a pretty common term in open source world. It means launching a new project from an existing project
with a different direction.

Original StarOffice product was available with both open source license and commercial license. If you wanted to use
StarOffice that was fine, you could go to staroffice.com web site and grab a copy of it. If you wanted commercial grade
support from the writers of the software you had to pay.

Sun Microsystems decided to cancel the licensing scheme of the product. They have decided to offer only commercial
licensed StarOffice. However once a project is open source it cannot be closed. Therefore the project divided into two.

Since the StarOffice name is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, the open sourced fork of the product should have a new
name, and there we have OpenOffice.

To cut long story short, StarOffice and OpenOffice tastes the same bu have different names

Creating Google Office?

Creating Google Office?

Who is online