Both Google and Microsoft are intent on being Workplace users; favored way of collaborating on documents.Microsoft has been touting not just SharePoint, but also its Office Internet Apps — and its Microsoft Docs sibling — as a way for consumers to share Office paperwork. Workplace Internet Apps allows users running vaious browsers and operating systems to view (and sometimes also edit/create) Office documents, even if they don;t have Office installed on their PCs or devices.Google, as of November 22, has its own alternative: Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Workplace. Google is offering an invitation-only early-access preview of Cloud Connect today.Cloud Connect is based on the DocVerse technology that Google bought in March 2010. (DocVerse;s founder and CEO is Shan Sinha, who formerly was invovled with SQL Server/SharePoint product strategy at Microsoft.)Instead of pitching that Microsoft customers dump Office, Google is positioning Cloud Connect as a way that Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 consumers can sync their Workplace documents to Google;s cloud services. Cloud Connect is a 3 MB plug-in for Word, Excel and PowerPoint that Google developed using “purely public” Office application-programming interfaces (APIs),
Office 2007 Enterprise Product Key, Google officials said. Once synced via the plug-in, paperwork are backed-up,
Cheap Office 2007 Key, given a unique URL that can be accessed via the Web on PCs and mobile devices,
Windows 7 Key Sale, according to Google. Customers can not merely share documents,
Office Standard 2010 Key, but in addition simultaneously coauthor and access their revision history on all documents.The initial trial is aimed at Google Docs Apps for Business consumers, but Google Apps for Business Docs users also could be added to the preview program in the not-too-distant future. Once the final version of Cloud Connect launches, Google says it will be free for consumer and business end users. (Google isn;t providing a final release target date for Cloud Connect.)If you;re thinking what I was thinking — that Cloud Connect might be the way that Google brings back offline access for Google Docs (by allowing/acknowledging that end users can save documents in Workplace on their desktop) — no dice.“This is not offline access for Docs, even though it does support offline and online editing,” Sinha told me. “Offline for Google Docs is still coming, but it will be built around HTML 5.”Google is,
Office Ultimate 2007 Key, instead, positioning Cloud Connect as a way for current Workplace consumers, even those using older versions of the product, to avoid having to upgrade to the latest Office release to get functionality like document coauthoring.“We are saying whatever version of the Office software you have, you can take your existing installed base and move it to the Internet,” Sinha said. “This isn;t like messaging (which is more of an either Gmail or Exchange or Hotmail choice). This is not a rip-and-replace (pitch). It;s about coexistence.”For customers running older versions of Microsoft Office — or those running Workplace who have to collaborate with folks on Google Docs/Google Apps — Cloud Connect might be useful. I;m not sure how many enterprise users need this kind of a bridge, however. Thoughts?
