The Way To Go for Office

Yesterday Google released a new version of its spreadsheet and word processing application and again everybody is talking about how Google could force Microsoft Office into submission. One can imagine that the guys in Redmond will count features and start laughing if the score comes out at something like 53,738 to 56 or so in favor of MS Office. No, Google won't defeat Microsoft just now, but they're opening up some interesting perspectives.
First of all, as everybody knows, most users only use very few features of MS Office. Recently a co-worker, who works with Excel every day, asked me, how to add values in a spreadsheet. Well, such formulas are why spreadsheets were originally invented, but most people are using them as table-oriented word processors or simple databases. In many of those cases Excel is cumbersome to use, but people got used to it
Second, the idea of having a spreadsheet and word processor working in a browser is compelling. Talk about the "thin client" is as old as the web and so far nobody really has realized it, but the Google applications (and similar approaches by other companies) show an elegant way, how it could be done. Imaging, when you buy a new PC: instead of installing applications and copying your data, you just open the browser and you're already there.
Third, if you want to publish a document in the web, it's easy because they are already in the web. We certainly will take advantage of that feature for NYDiscovery.