Google-Sun Webcast: No Google Office Today

The integration of unrelated software into these sorts of bundles (ie: java with google toolbar) is really unnecessary. It is a sneaky way to get people to install software they don't really want or need. Tricking consumers is a dangerous waqy to promote a product.

Hah, finally someone with a clue :-)

There is nothing but hot air in the Sun/Google press release, and I guess you are amongst the very first journalists to notice it in writing.

I definitely agree that:

1 - Google Office is a great idea (but not to be announced today)

2 - I don't see the point in bundling Google Toolbar with JRE, as they are quite unrelated to each other.

The ball is on the tee. Waiting for Scott & Eric to journey through
the par 3 whole. Next, we will see marketing create the demand, then
they take their first stroke to the hole. It will come.

From the graphic on Java.com it's for IE only?

This idea of the google office is so old.

I remember a couple of years ago when the fever of the WEB API's came to the market, there was a website that provided that kind of thing. If I remember well was called desktop.com or something else. Now there is Thinkfree.com which does almost the same.

The only good thing is that Google office will be free and multiplatform.

"Strategic" to them. To me, hugely annoying. There is nothing to like about a program I neither need nor want bundled with something that I must have. Sounds like a page out of the Microsoft playbook and a total turn off.

Ingram says:
In the late 1990s, senior executives at Microsoft -- including then-CEO Bill Gates -- were obsessed with what they saw as the biggest threat to the company's domination of the software industry. That threat was the combination of a Web browser called Netscape with software called Java, developed by Sun Microsystems. Starting with the infamous "Internet tidal wave" memo in 1995, Microsoft spent a great deal of time and energy trying to combat this threat. Why? Because the software giant saw it as having the potential to dethrone its desktop hegemony, by moving what people did with their desktop PCs onto the Internet.

That threat was defused by a combination of market power and savvy marketing from Microsoft, and also -- if the truth be told -- by some fumbling on the part of Netscape and Sun. Microsoft started giving away its own browser, and began offering "Web-friendly" software. Netscape was acquired by America Online and gradually became irrelevant, and Sun failed to build on the potential of Java for a number of reasons. Among other things, the company was blindsided by competition from open-source server software and the popularity of the Linux operating system.

Now, almost 10 years later, the threat that had Microsoft so concerned has returned in a new form: Search-engine leader Google has become a much bigger competitor than Netscape ever was, first in Internet search and increasingly in other areas such as instant messaging and voice-over-Internet services. On Tuesday, Google and Sun announced a joint venture to promote Java and the OpenOffice suite developed by Sun -- a product that competes with Microsoft's Office, which accounts for about 30 per cent of the software giant's revenue and 70 per cent of its profits.

The two companies didn't provide many details of their new relationship, and there was no blockbuster announcement along the lines of what many Google-watchers were expecting -- that is, an Office-style suite of applications that would run over the Internet. In fact, the only concrete news was that Sun would offer users who download Java a chance to download the Google toolbar. There was the sense, however, that Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Sun CEO Scott McNealy have other things up their sleeves that they aren't quite ready to announce yet.

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There was a lot of talk, for example, about the power of open-source software and the power of the Internet. Mr. McNealy said he believes Sun's vision of "the network is the computer" is coming to pass, and that he is often reminded of Mr. Schmidt's motto: "Don't bet against bandwidth." Both men also pointed out that Mr. Schmidt is a former senior executive at Sun, who was instrumental in the development of both Java and the Solaris operating system. Google also recently hired a senior engineer from Sun who was responsible for the development of OpenOffice.

Mr. McNealy, who noted that his company was "the dot in dot-com... back in the old days," said that the relationship was designed to "drive the key technologies in what we call Web 2.0," and that forming a partnership with Google was a natural move since the company is "the leader in Web services." The Sun CEO also said that while the agreement covered a partnership to "promote the Java environment and the Google desktop toolbar," he described it as a "very exciting and growing relationship, so stay tuned." Mr. Schmidt said that he had learned a lot about leadership from Mr. McNealy, and that Sun helped to build the "open, interoperable Web" with Java, after which Google came along and built "the next layer, the next level of services on top" of that open-source foundation.

The two men were coy about where their relationship might lead. When someone asked about the much-talked about "Google operating system," Mr. Schmidt replied with a smile that "we're in the end-user search business." Sun chief operating officer Jonathan Schwartz, however, said the power of the Internet had opened up "another set of opportunities" involving network-enabled, open-source applications such as Firefox and OpenOffice, and that the Google relationship was part of that. Mr. McNealy was the only one to refer specifically to Microsoft, saying his focus on open source was "about choice for the customer," and that what Sun is providing is "where the puck is going, not where it's been." The old "client-server" model used by Microsoft, he said "is so last millennium."

Although the details of the Sun-Google partnership were less exciting than some of the speculation in advance of the announcement, the reality is that if anyone can make the Internet-based software application business work -- and thereby become the threat that Microsoft has worried about for 10 years -- it is Google. Where Netscape was a small startup trying to survive financially, Google has a market value approaching $100-billion (U.S.) and yet gives its main product away for free. And in contrast to the 1990s, broadband access to the Internet is now widely available, and users are more comfortable with Web-based applications. How does Microsoft compete?

Just my opinion, but I doubt Google will do anything evil with the toolbar. In the realm of toolbars, Googles is one of the most useful, and it doesnt change your homepage or include adware. As far as installing it, I dont know if Google would even force them to install the toolbar, and it is more likely it will be optional, not to mention easy to remove. But seriously, if you dont have Firefox (which has it built in), why wouldnt you want the Google toolbar.

Holla and Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanks for the special work and information!

Hey man...sorry I missed the party. order valium

Good morning. Good-bye!

Good evening. Excuse.

Sorry people. Any more I shall not be.

Good morning. Excuse.

I am sorry... Let is soon meet!

With a holiday! Excuse.

With a holiday! Good-bye!

Sorry people. Good-bye!

why dosent google just bite the bullet and acually just write a new op system that downloads over the top of windows and works with every program that microsofts does then just keep updating till u have the ulimate op system (microsoft does lol) them ull see microsoft cringe trust me charging for XP was a farce and a travisty since the opp system was flawed i refused to pay for it i run a counterfeit copy and if they refuse to update so be it
but i know where there are millions and millions of users that would use a google op sys if it was free and just downloaded over the top
but please no adds in the op system thats all we ask you will have us all and probly bring down microsoft in the exersise
so stop talking and as the shoe says
JUST DO IT
and Gates will be looking how far up his bottom the shoe goes.