Google Does Word Processing
Posted by Harry McCracken | Friday, March 10, 2006 9:04 AM PT
For eons, there
have been rumors of a possibly browser-based Google office suite. Now there's an intriguing nugget of reality to ponder: Google has bought
Writely, the impressive free browser-based collaborative word processor.
What Google is going to do with Writely isn't entirely clear--it says there are no plans to embed advertising in the service--but it's yet another recent example (along with
Google Base, the
new Google Desktop, and
Google Page Creator) of Google doing something involving being a repository for information, not just an indexer of it. (They've always said that their mission was to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"--maybe it's time to add "and store it, too" to that statement.)
I don't know if Google has specific intentions for Writely, but the acquisition makes perfect sense in a big-picture way. Writely already follows Google-esque principles better than some of Google's own offerings: It's innovative, easy, useful, fun, and free. If it becomes a springboard for other browser-based productivity tools from Google, that might be a very good thing. And if Google had tried to develop its own word processor from scratch, I can't imagine it would have been any better...or much different.
One other note. In the short term, the Google-Writely deal has one major downside: Writely has stopped signing up new users while it moves the service to Google's platform. (No word on when it might open up again.)
If you're already a Writely user, you can still get in, but you have a cap on the number of people you can invite in to work on a document. Collaboration is one of the primary notions behind Writely, so that may be an issue for some Writely fans.
Lesson: As great as great free stuff (like Writely) is, you've got to be careful about coming to depend on it. Freeloaders can't be choosers--or at least it's harder for them to be quite as demanding as paying customers. (Oddly enough, I just finished writing an Up Front column for the next issue of PC World which touched on this issue.)
If you're intrigued by Writely and bummed you can't get in, check out
ZohoWriter, a similar, similarly nifty free service that's still signing up new users.
A sureshot winner yet again in the Google stable. This clearly is the way apps will be delivered in the future. With Google's entry this gives a major fillip to the adoption of hosted software, and a major headache for Microsoft, which is all set to release office 12.
While I love Writely (it allows me to edit documents from both home and work), I seriously doubt if this sort of thing is going to make a significant dent in "real" desktop apps any time this decade, and even then not until something very concrete is done about privacy and security issues. I also like ZohoWriter for the same reason, but at some point I'm going to decide which to stick with.
Right now, hackers and other knuckleheads are too smart, too persistent and too tenacious for any but the most foolhardy corporate entities to trust business-critical documents to any web-based service like this. While it sounds like a great, up-and-coming idea, it just ain't ready to happen. In fact, if Google (and Microsoft, shoud they decide to jump into this pool) and others push this too hard, they'll kill it before it has a chance to show its viability.
A case in point is Passport, a great idea, but Microsoft pushed it way too hard before presenting a credible answer to the question, "Why should I trust my personal information to a company like Microsoft?" It's still a very good idea, but full-scale adoption is highly unlikely because of it's initial bad press.
The word-processing world has been monopolized and therefore abused by Microsoft Word for too long. WordPerfect, Lotus, Linux Red Hat, etc. have all failed to give the mighty Redmond giant a significant bleeding. We hope all the best for Google/Writely. Roman empire, communism, Hitler have all declined. So will Microsoft, as long as it continues to bully the small guys in unfair competition.
I'm using another online office suite called FlySuite.com. As it includes a full-featured spreadsheet, it may be a good next purchase for Google.
FlySuite (though it looks good) doesn't fit in with Google's general business model (the thing COSTS, then there's an annual fee for online usage/storage). It's too early to be paying for something like this. Besides, it would make more sense for the developers at Writely to simply create a spreadsheet than for Google to buy another of the same type of thing just to get one. I don't know why anyone would pay for something like this at this point in time.
I'd love to trying out writely.com. Can someone invite me? (You can add me as a collaborator and email me at luke@enterlife.net)
Thanks!