Office Live, you're no Google Docs
Microsoft has announced a milestone with its Office Live Workspace product: It's scored its millionth user. And the company has announced the product will be out of beta this year.
Yay, Microsoft. Now go back and build the service we want, please.
There are people who say that Office Live is a Google Docs competitor. It certainly could be, someday, and I'd like to see that. But it's not right now. What it is right now is a way for people who have paid for the Microsoft Office suite to share files with other people who have the suite. It's useful, but it's no Google Docs, nor Zoho for that matter.
Those other productivity suites are a) free, and b) browser-based. They don't require that you pay for and then install software on your PC.
As ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley writes, Microsoft believes that users don't want to create big files and documents "on the Web." Maybe that's because they can't.
Offlice Live does have its own text editor, but it's rather weak and doesn't have Google Docs' killer feature: simultaneous editing. If someone edits a document you've got open and you then try to save it, you get a conflict error and have to decide whose edits you want to kill.
I believe Microsoft could make an honest Google Docs competitor without killing its Microsoft Office business. Eventually, Microsoft will have to. So it might be smart for Microsoft to encourage people to start thinking about the company as an expansive supplier of productivity solutions--desktop and Web-based--rather than just a company that makes desktop office products that, by the way, also have some add-on Web support.
Tidbit: Office Live Workspace works nicely in Internet Explorer and also in Firefox. But you get a blocking error page if you try to use it in Google Chrome.
Rafe Needleman writes about start-ups, new technologies, and Web 2.0 products, as editor of CNET's Webware. E-mail Rafe.
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Productivity and business
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Microsoft,
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Office Live,
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Zoho,
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Google Docs
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MS probably has something much more sneaky and draconic, but it's not in the EULA.
(*cue crickets chirping*)
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.
11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this licence shall permit Google to take these actions.
11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licence.
to paraphrase what they said, if you make a work public using a Google service, they have the right to display it. They also have the right to reformat it (AKA turn CR/LF into a
or a
. They are only reserving the rights to works that are submitted, posted or displayed. Not your private stuff. This is boiler plate legalese techno babble they put on all of their services. I don't like it, but it is not as bad as it sounds.
Creating and not sharing a private document in Google docs would satisfy the legal requirements of phrases like 'submit... on... the Services'.
I think you would find that even a love letter between you & your gf through Gmail is fair play for Google to use under this clause.
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.
11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this licence shall permit Google to take these actions.
11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above licence.
As far as Google Doc's go, its ok for doing the simplist of tasks. Browser based app's are great, saves HDD space, always updated, etc.... But they are very limited in power. Honestly though, how many times to you need to share document editing for a document, with that many people, over the internet, that it is actually useful? Not a bad feature, but if you answered that question honestly, it would be a very low number for the average computer user. And I guess I dont see the advantage of having multiple people make edits to the same document at the same time, to me that seems like a nightmare.
As far as mass editing of a doc, your talking mostly business's. And corporations are afraid of the internet, because of viruses and such, and because of the risk of lost intellectial property. Instead its much easier and safer to have installed office software and a file share server.
I could see google doc's being good for that school project where 4-5 people need to write one paper together, but honestly I dont get it for anything else.
That and googles EULA's are horrid. Pretty much anything you do with their software or app's can be used by them. They dont technically own your work, but they could use a document you created, maybe a document for your company that you dont want the public to see, and now its in a google ad for all to see.
I don't think everything should be done through advertizing. You should be able to pay for the service to remove ads.
I guess the only advantage to cloud computing is being able to work on the same thing, or use the same programs, without having to have them all installed on all your computers (at work, school, home, etc) or have to transfer the files .But if you live at home a lot, and you already have a laptop, then there isn't really any tangible difference between desktop computer and cloud computing.
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by stalepie2
September 7, 2008 7:01 PM PDT
- A future where we use terminals instead of powerful desktop PCs *does* seem to portend a future with a lot less freedom. I'm not sure about less privacy, as these accounts could be locked for only the owner to access, but still you'd surely have less freedom if you couldn't keep your files physically stored in your house.
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