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Docs & Spreadsheets, Google for Educators, and the Google Gdrive: It all adds up to a complete web based Office toolbox and PC, Pandia argues.

The Google plan for world domination get clearer every day, and those that are still in doubt should probably reflect on a few recent search engine news events:

Google Docs and Spreadsheets

First, last week Google launched Google Docs.

There is not much new about this service, it is essentially a combination of the online word processor Writely and the Google online spreadsheet.

Google Docs has its bugs and it does not have the features necessary to make us abandon Microsoft’s office - yet. This why so many bloggers and online experts find it hard to believe that this constitutes a threat to Microsoft. But believe us, it does!

 

Do not look at what Google Docs is today. Think about what Google Docs will be, a year or two into the future. We are talking about a world where high speed reliable broadband is the norm, and where people are used to saving their photos, videos and emails online. So why not your word processor files and spreadsheets?

Google Docs lets you access your texts and numbers from anywhere in the world. The service takes back ups of your files all the time, which means that they are safe. And yes, you can upload and edit your old Office files and save the final product in Office formats, making cooperation with old fashioned software users possible.

The most significant new fact about the Google Docs launch is the fact that you know log in to what used to be Writely with your Google ID. You use your Gmail address as your log in identity. Our Gmail home page now brings up direct links to:

• Google search
• Gmail
• The Google Calendar
• Docs & Spreadsheets
• Google Groups

This is for all practical purposes an Office package.

But there is more. Click on “all my services” and we find links to:

• Alerts (Google’s email alert service)
• Base (Google’s online database tool)
• orkut (Google’s online community site)
• Page Creator (a web page creator, rudimentary at present, but who knows…)
• Reader (a web feed reader)
• Talk (chat program)

And this is not a complete list of Google offerings.

It is certainly true that not all of these services are of a high quality and some of them are having great difficulties competing with the best - Google Talk and Google Video come to mind. Still, they are all part of one package and one log in.

All Google has to do is to make the integration more seamless and improve the quality of the weakest links, and you are close to a technological lock in.

At that point Google does not have to present the best product in all niches. Microsoft never did with Office.

Platypus Gdrive

The next news item of interest is the disclosure of the Google Platypus Gdrive. Last week Google Blogoscoped presented a product we knew existed but that Google had tried to keep under lock and key.

The Gdrive is not public and you cannot use it yet. But the Google staff can. They can use Platypus as an online disk drive, saving not only email and documents, but any types of files.

It is similar to services like Xdrive and Mediamax, but within a Google setting. And like them it allows you to use your web browser as your file manager.

It is a safe bet that Google will open up this service to Google users when it is ready for prime time, and when their server infrastructure is up for it. That is the good thing about Google’s hardware system; it is flexible and allows you to handle increased traffic by adding more cheap PCs.

Add the Platypus Gdrive to the services listed above and you have more than an Office package. Now you can move your whole PC onto the net. As long as you have access to an online web browser you are ready to go.

No wonder Microsoft is desperately trying to move Windows onto the Web under the label of Windows Live.

Google for Educators

Which leads us to the final news item of last week: Google for Educators.

Google for Educators is a web portal for teachers, telling them how to use various Google services in the class room.

In various articles Google suggests how their services may be used as teaching tool. The tools covered are:

• Web Search
• Google Earth
• Google Book Search
• Google Maps
• Google Video
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets
• Blogger
• Google SketchUp (modeling software for designers)
• Google Calendar
• Picasa (for pictures)
• Google Personalized (home page)
• Homepage
• Google Apps for Education

Not only can you use these services individually (like in using Google Maps in geography lessons). You can also combine them into an all-encompassing content management system using tools like the personalized home page (for your class), a shared calender (for planning) and Picasa and Google Video to share the results of class projects.

But if you have a project management system like this one for the class room, what is to stop you from using the same technology for managing business projects, public offices or collaboration across institutional boarders? The answer is, of course, nothing.

Google may actually manage to give away the successor to Lotus Notes for free.

Where’s the money?

And that brings us up to the weak point of this theory, the sceptics may say. How is Google going to monetize all this? They cannot put up context sensitive text ads in all these services.

Why not? You are writing a letter on your secret desire to visit Bali, and up pops a text ad for the Bali Hilton! This is not too far fetched. Gmail users already accepts text ads together with their emails.

For some services, like the spreadsheet, Picasa and the video services (YouTube and Google Video) Google will probably have to be a bit more creative, and some of the services may not be profitable in themselves. Still, the package as a whole may be very profitable, and the less profitable parts will bring in user to the this complete Google Toolbox.

Moreover, on the business side, Google may even offer fee based upgrades, adding more advanced functions to services like the word processor, the spreadsheet and the database. Such features may, for instance, include an increased ablity to interlink files and data from the different “tabs”.

So yes, our guess is that Google will end up as the Microsoft of the 21st century.

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