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Software The Internet

Investigating Online Office Suites 101

Posted by Zonk from the because-working-is-that-much-better-away-from-the-office dept.
jcatcw writes "Computerworld reviewed four online office suites — Ajax13, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, ThinkFree Online and Zoho Office Suite. None has all the applications and features of Microsoft Office, but if you're looking for the core office applications in an access-anywhere format, at least two were surprisingly sophisticated. The article weighs the ability to save files to a centralized server quite heavily in its ranking. The winner is ThinkFree Office because it provides the most sophisticated features and has the best Microsoft Office compatibility. Zoho's suite is the second choice."
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Investigating Online Office Suites More

Investigating Online Office Suites

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  • Doesn't Matter (Score:5, Funny)

    by jkiol ( 1050424 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @05:54PM (#17688074)
    I still prefer emacs *Awaits bashing from VI users*

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by ruben.gutierrez ( 913239 )
      :s/\(.*\)emacs.*/\1vi/

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by davek ( 18465 )
      VI r0cz!

      Hell will freeze over the day a modal editor becomes web-enabled. VI will still be the best editor in 20 years, and it will STILL be used over a serial line.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        I suddenly have the urge to write a JavaScript port of vi. Something like this:

        • Take over the keyboard. You can read key up/down events in JS, so this shouldn't be too hard.
        • Each line is a separate XML element.
        • Within each line, it maintains two copies: the raw data (as an attribute) and the display version.
        • The display version highlights a single character by wrapping it in a CSS tag that makes it inverted.
        • Arrow keys change which character is highlighted and on which line.
        • Floating div that hovers at

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jkiol ( 1050424 )
      Unless you call running [emacs|vi] in applegate's mindterm (java-web based ssh client), web based?
    • Frankly, I prefer gedit, TextEdit.app or notepad.exe. I likes my txt to be text.
      • Frankly, I prefer gedit, TextEdit.app or notepad.exe. I likes my txt to be text.

        Did I miss the joke? How are files edited with emacs and vi not text files?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by h2g2bob ( 948006 )
        notepad.exe? You're joking right. No syntax highlighting, no regex search, no choice of newline character, no nothing. At least use notepad2.exe, it is much better.
        • How does Notepad2 compare to Notepad Plus? Seriously, I do everything on Linux, but at General Dynamics, all the friggen desktops are Windows, requiring us Geeks to run Cygwin to get the job done - Aaaaaarggghhh... Can Notepad2 copy and paste culumnar (vertical) blocks?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by JavaRob ( 28971 )

            How does Notepad2 compare to Notepad Plus? Seriously, I do everything on Linux, but at General Dynamics, all the friggen desktops are Windows, requiring us Geeks to run Cygwin to get the job done - Aaaaaarggghhh... Can Notepad2 copy and paste culumnar (vertical) blocks?
            They're both built using the scintilla code-editing component, which does support columnar editing (alt-select).
      • You are obviously a slash dot surveillance spy. And a bad one.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by baboon ( 4086 )
      Kidding aside, look up ajaxterm. It gives you a terminal over http (or preferably, https). You avoid tunnels and ssh, which may be naively prohibited. It does lack mouse support, though, but color works fine.

      From there, run VIM on your tex files and you're all set. Also try mutt for your webmail.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by johnw ( 3725 )
      No, no, no - you need Vigor http://vigor.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

  • Google Docs and Spreadsheets (Score:5, Interesting)

    by klenwell ( 960296 ) <klenwell@nospaM.gmail.com> on Friday January 19, 2007 @06:00PM (#17688158) Homepage Journal
    I've been satisfied with Google D&S, mostly because it's now well integrated (bundled?) with my Gmail account. Then I tried to print a hard copy of a Google Doc for the first time yesterday. Now I'm less impressed. (Google's definition of a 'pt' and Word's are way off.)

    Still, the sharing feature is cool. But the Gmail integration is the main reason I'm loathe to try any alternatives.

    • Re:Google Docs and Spreadsheets (Score:4, Informative)

      by rowama ( 907743 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @06:43PM (#17688860)
      I've also been using Google docs for a while now. Not the word processor, but the spreadsheet s/w. It suffices, but there are limitations that I would not be able to live with for most spreadsheet needs. For example, no simple way to address a full column or row, no way to do range intersections, no range naming, etc. I've lost data on more than one occasion when the backend lost contact with the server. It reverts back to the previously auto-saved version. I use it for one reason now: keeping track of billable time. I can live with the limitations in this case because I need to access it from several computers in several locations. Evenso, I may soon move the spreadsheet to openoffice.org and use a thumb drive for portability.

      A good thing about the article is that it made me realize there may be a better alternative in ThinkFree.

    • It could be a LOT better. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Kadin2048 ( 468275 ) <slashdot.kadin@xox y . net> on Friday January 19, 2007 @07:03PM (#17689072) Homepage Journal
      The ability to integrate Gmail and D&S could be a big advantage, but frankly I've been a bit disappointed that they haven't leveraged it more obviously.

      Case in point: a few days ago someone emailed me a DOC file. Why isn't there an option to open it in D&S? It'll view it as HTML, or Download it, but what I'd really like would be one-click to turn it into an editable, publishable document. As it was, I had to download it, then re-upload it to D&S in order to produce an editable version. Not a huge problem, but if I had been on a computer where I wasn't allowed to save documents, it would have been. It's just stupid to make me pull a document down to my local machine from one Google server, only to upload it back to another Google server a minute later.

      Also, when you do have a document open in D&S, why isn't there an option to email a copy to someone? Okay, I know I can invite them to edit it online, and I could always publish it and send them an invite, but why not something where I can send them a DOC version as an email attachment? That's a lot easier for many people to deal with. And while we're at it, how about some form of change tracking that would let me email a copy to someone, let them edit it offline, and then a way to re-import it to D&S (via the one-click, above) so that it would be change-tracked, as if they had logged-in to edit it? Expecting everyone to have a Google ID to edit documents is ridiculous. I can't convince everyone in my family to get Google IDs, much less everyone I'd like to share documents with, everywhere.

      I think it's a great service, and a great start. But it has a long way to go, even within becoming part of Google's "suite" of services.
      • Case in point: a few days ago someone emailed me a DOC file. Why isn't there an option to open it in D&S?

        In your account, look at the upload page. There's an email address there that you can use to email stuff into your D&S space. So, you could simply forward the message to your upload address. It's not "one-click," but it's still pretty easy -- and it doesn't require you to make use of the local computer.

        Also, when you do have a document open in D&S, why isn't there an option to email a copy to
        • In your account, look at the upload page. There's an email address there that you can use to email stuff into your D&S space. So, you could simply forward the message to your upload address. It's not "one-click," but it's still pretty easy -- and it doesn't require you to make use of the local computer.

          well, the functionality is quite limited however. What is does is it converts the doc files into html and then publishes it online.....it doesn't allow other people to edit it...not soooo bad but of

      • If you open a gmail message with an attached wordprocessor or spreadsheet document it has a link by the attachment icon allowing it to be opened, edited or saved in Google Docs & Spreadsheets

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rindeee ( 530084 )
          Hmmmm...mine doesn't. Just the normal 'Download" and "View as HTML".

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by freakxx ( 987620 )
          If you open a gmail message with an attached wordprocessor or spreadsheet document it has a link by the attachment icon allowing it to be opened, edited or saved in Google Docs & Spreadsheets

          is there anyone else who is seeing this option?? I don't see any such thing in my case [unfortunately :-( ]

          • Yes,

            An Excel attachment that was emailed to me just yesterday has these options:

            14K _View as HTML_ _Open as a Google spreadsheet_ _Download_
        • Are you sure you are getting that on *word processing* documents? I think that I may have seen that when I've been sent a spreadsheet...but it's definitely not there on some DOC files that I've got in my Inbox.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by gharris ( 188182 ) *

        a few days ago someone emailed me a DOC file. Why isn't there an option to open it in D&S?

        If you use Firefox and the Google Firefox Toolbar Version 3 [google.com], you can:

        Google Docs & Spreadsheets
        With the Google Docs & Spreadsheets feature enabled in the Google Toolbar, you can open most popular file types right in your browser. Google Docs & Spreadsheets will display these files in a new browser window when you either drag the file icon into your browser, click a link to a file on a web page, or doub

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by fbartho ( 840012 )
      Export to pdf, and you get to see what googledocs thinks everything really looks like, even if word reformats

  • I'm a lazy idiot (Score:1, Insightful)

    by JeanBaptiste ( 537955 )
    but enough about me. I really like Open Office. Do these 'compete' with OOo? Or do these solve some sort of other problem? Would I use OOo _and_ one of these things? Why?

    thanks in advance
    • 1. not per se. both compete as office suites, but they're in differant classes of office suites.

      2. access an office apps on any computer with a net connection, anywhere, no need to have the applications installed on the computer itself. handy if you don't carry a laptop and you need to work on something somwhere other than work/home, like at a public library or something. just pull up one of these online office suites, have your file (thumbdrive, online storage, etc.) and whomp away at it.

      3. maybe.

      4. dep

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by stormeru ( 1027946 )

      OpenOffice is a standalone application [wikipedia.org], the office suites presented in the review are web applications [wikipedia.org].

      simple explanation:
      - to use OpenOffice you have to install it on every computer where you need it. (if you don't have the installer specific for the platform, think about the time it takes to download it)
      - to use these online office suites you need only a web browser (almost every OS distribution comes with one included, in a short amount of time you can finish writing the document without downloading

    • The problem these solve is twofold.

      Problem One is how do you get to all your data, when you might use five or six computers during the course of a week? Rather than having to carry around a laptop/keychain-drive/floppy, D&S lets you sit down at any internet-enabled computer and access all your stuff. You don't need to worry about having the applications installed, or the right copy of that document; it's all on the server, along with the applications.

      Problem Two is collaboration. There are some existing
    • and this is a "big" disadvantage when one is using non-google online services. I don't know why the hell ThinkFree is ranked top and Zoho second. Google D&S at least supports open-document format but it also has a limitation that it can't accept more than 500KB files.

      well, the conclusion seems to that use the local machine for editing etc. and then use google or whatever for only publishing purposes.

  • Website Bugged (Score:3, Informative)

    by NotoriousHood ( 970422 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @06:04PM (#17688236)
    Read the first page and then any pages on that site after that had an error message.

    I would have grabbed the article text. Maybe someone else can post it if they get through for others that get bugged.
  • I've kicked the tires on the web 2.0 office stuff that you get with Gmail but I guess I still don't see much of a point to these.

    Virtually every computer I use in business and at home already has an office suite built in, whether it be Office, OpenOffice, or whatever-Dell-is-shipping-these-days.

    At home, my office use consists of writing sick day excuse notes for my kids.

    At the office, all my customers and colleagues use and have Office and most of the documents eventually end up in PDF form anyway. Version
    • Many people out there think that thin-clients are the wave of the future. This means that instead of spending $500 on your Dell, and running all applications locally, you spend $50 on a thin device that has nothing but a web browser and an internet connection. All applications are run over the internet.

      It's an interesting concept, and this could be the wave of the future, but in order for that future to arrive, a lot of things need to happen first...

      1. High speed internet in every home. And not jus

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by maxume ( 22995 )
        My personal take on this is that as bandwidth and processing power become very very available and very very cheap, things will drift so that rather than using a thin client or a fat client, you use an available client. If I want to look at a piece of data, I am not always going to care about the details, but I am still going to want to look at it; maybe that means my cell phone, maybe that means my laptop, maybe that means my computer brick(basically a pda, but with lots more storage) talks to my friend's t

  • Unwise to use them for confidential data (Score:5, Insightful)

    by davidwr ( 791652 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @06:07PM (#17688272) Homepage Journal
    It's very unwise to use a hosted-server solution to store confidential or private data unless it's encrypted and you hold the only keys or you've got a contractual agreement that the hosts will never look at the data absent a court order and that they are liable if an adversary breaks in for any reason other than your negligence.

    Keep this in mind when you use services to create or save documents. It doesn't matter if it's a spreadsheet, email, or what-not.

    And for heaven's sake don't store my credit-card number on Google. CowboyNeal's maybe but not mine.

    • Re: (Score:1, Redundant)

      by tcopeland ( 32225 )
      > It's very unwise to use a hosted-server solution to store
      > confidential or private data unless it's encrypted
      > and you hold the only keys

      And it's not a bad idea to send such documents over an encrypted transport like indi [getindi.com] rather than via unsecured email.

    • One interesting thing I read about their choice (ThinkFree) is that they offer software you can install on your own server [thinkfree.com] to store your documents safely and securely. If you're a company, you could run your own ThinkFree server, presumably with as much security and encryption you want. Or heck, since it only costs $30 per year, I suppose you could run your own ThinkFree server with any security and encryption you want, access your documents anywhere, and still come out way ahead financially if you're wil

    • Re:Unwise to use them for confidential data (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sporkme ( 983186 ) * on Friday January 19, 2007 @06:34PM (#17688698) Homepage
      Google: Confidential "not for public release" [google.com] - optionally add filetype:pdf, doc, etc.

      I completely agree with your statement. Swapping convenience for security is the name of the game. I used Writely.com before it became Google D&S. I found it mainly useful to leave lasting notes-to-self from work, and when I needed to whip up something with a little more shine than wordpad. For anything professional, OOO + [distribution system of choice] is the way to go.
    • I disagree. If an office doesn't have the expertise or money to be able to properly secure their network, then letting professionals handle that is a better option. I was managing my own business' web server, mail server, etc. One day, I realized that I really didn't know enough, and I didn't have the time to learn about it. I outsourced it, and now security is their problem, not mine. Considering that my various hosting thingies are being run by professional admins makes me feel much better than doing
    • I think there's a valid point in that. I'd like to see such a system where I can host such software on my own server. I'd like to see the OSS community to latch onto that idea, collaborative text, spreadsheet, and maybe collaborative drawing tools too. In a "normal" business, all this stuff would be local, but there's still the concern about multiple people using the same document, and more people are collaborating over wider areas such that a private internal file server connected by VPN might still not
  • I can see where these services would be useful for collaborative projects involving people in far flung locations. But for regular business use how many companies want to store their data on someone else's server?
    • But for regular business use how many companies want to store their data on someone else's server?

      Well, for one, anything short of 100% MS Office compatibility isn't an option. But if one of these options were compatible, or if MS offered something like this, then I'd do it. I'd rather trust professional administrators to securing my stuff then I'd trust myself doing some half-assed job. The key to running a good business is not necessarily doing everything yourself, but finding the best people to handl

    • Anyone who wants cheap I.T. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @06:52PM (#17688962)
      Lets see... Desktop PCs, servers, Office Suite, Accounts package, RDBMS, web servers, application server, security software, Windows administrator, server administrator, database administrator... It all adds up.

      Now imagine Google does it all for you, all you need is a client application and a network connection. They guarantee performance, security and that your data is yours when you want it. All for $20 per month per seat.

       

  • I'd read TFA but... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I keep getting
    "500 Servlet Exception


    java.lang.NullPointerException "

    with the stack trace.

    How are you folks reading it? Oh wait, I forgot. This is /.!

  • what about... (Score:3, Funny)

    by spoop ( 952477 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @06:12PM (#17688370)
    Virtudyne/Simdesk???? http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Best_of_2006_0x3a_ _The_Virtudyne_Saga.aspx [thedailywtf.com]

  • ThinkFree FTW (Score:5, Informative)

    by AKAImBatman ( 238306 ) * <akaimbatman@gmaYEATSil.com minus poet> on Friday January 19, 2007 @06:13PM (#17688384) Homepage Journal
    Unsurprisingly, ThinkFree was chosen as their preferred "online" Office Suite. FWIW, ThinkFree is an amazing piece of software that blasted onto the scene back in '99 - '00. The most amazing part of it was how it so closely resembled Microsoft Office. Given it's age, it's no surprise that it "won" this comparison.

    Of course, there is a caveat. Thinkfree uses client-side Java rather than being pure-Ajax. This gives it a distinct advantage as the Java GUI tools are far more mature than the embryonic Ajax GUIs. Basically, it was a bit of an unfair fight. Which would bother me, except that Thinkfree Office is an excellent product, and deserves the exposure.

    So if you find yourself with a need for a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation software on the go, keep Thinkfree in mind. It may cost money, but it's quite a bit more convenient than a Linux LiveCD. :)
    • Unless you can't find a place to hook in to the 'net...

    • The Java stuff causes problems (Score:4, Interesting)

      by dilute ( 74234 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @06:36PM (#17688740)
      I just tried it. The client-side Java wanted to mess with all the security stuff in place in the corporate environment. It just wasn't going to fly. Maybe it will load at home. Anyway, gonna stick with Google docs & spreadsheets. As someone above said, a big feature is its integration with gmail.
    • Client side Java holds more promise for creating a true desktop user experience. It has some disadvantages in that it is not installed by default on all browsers and has not yet gained the penetration of Flash. Also to do anything interesting you pretty much need a signed applet (as is the case with ThinkFree) which is a problem for many corporate "locked down" desktops. Sure they could figure out how to deal with that but pure Ajax just runs anywhere and is as secure as any other web site (e.g. it intro

  • Are people crazy? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Who in their right mind is going to store their documents on a system controlled by some dotcom company. There are a number of downsides to this and not a whole lot of upsides.
    You would at least want some sort of contract to say that can't do things with your documents. That still won't protect you against searches by LE. At least when the data is on your servers, you should get a heads up (barring black bag jobs) that LE has taken an interest in you.
    If the company goes bankrupt you may lose your data.

    Why n

    • People do this kind of things because they realize that 99% of their writing is utterly uninteresting and un-confidential, and 1% is confidential. Just keep that 1% secure, and use whatever is most convenient for the rest.

      I use such online editors for sharing shopping lists with my wife, write meeting agendas or minutes collaboratively (if the meeting is not supposed to be secret, why bother with security), and lots and lots of other things. If you think carefully, a very small portion of your stuff is

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )
      Yep, but when they offer it (as they will) in a 1 or 2U rack box, suddenly you've taken a huge distributed administration and security problem and centralized it. You might even decide to cut down on the number of file servers you run.

      Eventually what this is going against is not Office, but Sharepoint.

  • standalone/local (Score:3, Funny)

    by radarsat1 ( 786772 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @07:13PM (#17689172) Homepage
    I wonder if these could be easily turned into standalone/local versions by bundling a customized web server and browser into an "application".

    Or maybe that would be a waste of time.

  • real-time versioning (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wordsthatendinq ( 971620 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @07:14PM (#17689196)

    I've only used Google Docs (which I still prefer to call Writely because it has fewer syllables) though I'm sure the others are similar.

    The one feature that I find novel is the way it does revisions, especially for multi-author documents. The Writely revisions interface is looking more and more like MS Word's "track changes" but with the additional benefits that (a) many people can edit at the same time, and (b) you can see all revisions ever made, whereas in Word, once an author overwrites his own revisions you can't see the old version anymore.

    What's worked pretty well with a lot of my colleagues these days is to do everything on Writely until the text is complete, then one person downloads it and does the formatting in Word. (Then submit the paper and get rejected, but that happens with or without Writely.)

    That said, I still think LaTeX looks the best but I don't know as many people who use it.

    • LaTeX and Google Docs (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Check out this page on integrating Google Docs and LaTeX:

      http://www.sci.usq.edu.au/research/googledocs.php [usq.edu.au]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lahvak ( 69490 )
        That looks extremely interesting, especially the Power Convert. Unfortunately, the link to Power Convert requires an authetication.

        Speaking about LaTeX, I am surprised that nobody created a thin frontend for LyX. LyX is a great piece of software, but one shortcoming ot it is that it is a bear to install, you need a complete TeX installation, plus bunch of other tools, in order to use LyX. If somebody figured a way how to keep all this stuff on a server, and just install a small frontend on a user's compu
        • I am surprized that nobody has done such a thing for latex as well. I would love to keep all my .tex files (with revisions and stuff) and be able to edit them anywhere, see the dvi files online etc. That would be fantastic.

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by djeca ( 670911 )

            MediaWiki uses TeX to display mathematical formulas (anything in <math> tags), so it shouldn't be too much work to extend that to output full documents (in HTML and PDF) instead of little PNG images.

            Actually, I'm surprised no-one has done it yet. Hmm...

  • As lovely as these are, there's no way any real business is going to entrust their data into any of these. I can't imagine a merger deal on wall street being worked out using these tools.
  • The thin client over the net is really a poor way to organize an office suite. The only reason to use it is to save $$.

    Loosing the ability to use it if your net connection fails is a show stopper right there.

  • Good for on-the-go people (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RealGrouchy ( 943109 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @08:10PM (#17689710)
    At any given time, I could be at home, at one of three offices, or at a random public terminal. (My laptop's broken screen means it's stuck at home :( )

    If I need to update one of my tracking spreadsheets, I don't need to worry about whether the computer has a USB outlet (and remember to take it out!), which SD card my file is on, which version of the file is most recent, or whether that computer has the right software to read my file. (Not to mention that office suites tend to take a while to load up)

    Every computer that I use has an internet connection and firefox, and I can quickly and reliably log on to Google Spreadsheets to update my spreadsheets.

    Now that Google spreadsheets also has a "history" function, I also don't have to worry about constantly saving local backups, either (although my spreadsheets tend to be too big for it to be of much use).

    - RG>
  • FTA: "Online Office Suites: The Winner Is Clear In our hands-on review, one free Web-based Office alternative stands head and shoulders above the rest"


    Unpleasantly enough, this is a poorly formatted article where despite their big bold title, you don't find out until page 4 who they think the winner is (ThinkFree). No summary/comparison table either. Bleh.

    • Ya, I was thinking along the same lines. My request of these types of articles is a simple Benjamin Franklin table. Column 0 has the function, columns 1 thru n are the products. +1 goes in the cell, if the product has the function, and it works; else 0. This lets the reader make the decision as to what is best for them. The conclusions reached by the author could be biased, and yes, the table could be biased. But when the table is laid out, and readers are allowed to add or subtract functionality. Re

  • Only really good for small-scale use (Score:5, Insightful)

    by compupc1 ( 138208 ) on Friday January 19, 2007 @08:21PM (#17689854)
    I believe these types of thin-client office suites will never move beyond a novelty, at least with the current architecture of the web. Some random reasons why:

    • Privacy. Do you really want all your personal, private documents being stored on some remote server?
    • Reliability. Not only do you depend on your computer being up, but you also depend on the remote server being up and your network connection being up.
    • Mobility. While on one hand, a web-based application does offer greater mobility, it also requires an Internet connection. I can't count the number of times I've worked in a car or at some other location without connectivity.
    • Responsiveness. There will always be a latency involved that far exceeds that found on fat clients.
    • Capability. I'm sorry, but the whole web 2.0 phenomenon has pushed HTML, CSS, and JavaScript far beyond what they were intended for. As long as we're relying on these technologies, documents created with web applications will never be as capable of the expressiveness of a documents created with a fat client. Using applets or ActiveX or something like Flash would probably mitigate this.
    • Development. Thin clients are arguably easier to develop than fat clients. However, as soon as you introduce things like AJAX and complex scripting into the picture, things balloon out of control at an alarming rate. You spend most of your time fighting the basic request/response nature of the web. AJAX is really just one big hack to overcome this. AJAX is nice for adding bits of dynamic functionality to web sites, but it shouldn't be used for stuff like this. In fairness, I should note that better tool support and frameworks like the GWT and RAP will go a long way twoards addressing this.

    Say it with me class, "you pick the right technology for the job". Thin clients have their place. Office suites is not one of them.
    • Parent has excellent points. I just want to address that Google's plan for Googls D&S in the beginning was not to replace MS Office, but to supplement it. Google D&S was going to include the online functionality that MS Office lacked, and kinda still does lack. Someone said that they use D&S for writing the content, because many people can edit at the same time. Then, they use Word to format it. I believe that D&S and other AJAXy office apps are great for many users editing one document and

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by fantail ( 90626 )
      A couple of your concerns (Privacy and Reliability) could be dealt with if you had the ability to host the application on your own server.

      Are there any promising open source online office suites?
    • - Privary : Yes you're right, people need to open up source for this to be trusted and with a good word that their stored files aren't accessed from anything but the open sourced program itself except for backup reasons.

      - Reliability : When was the last time Google or CNN went down to be inaccessible? If you know what you're doing with good amount of cash to build the environment, it's not impossible. You can compare that with how many times people lose document for having to reboot Windows. Data aren't los
  • is that you give your data over to a company you may or may not trust. Php packages like Wordpress, Metawiki, and Drupal have shown that hosting your own service with standard, open-source software can be a great thing. Why are there no popular open source office suites that you can host on your own server? The time is right.
  • Tried Google docs pretty extensively (back when it was Writely) It's functionality covers about 99% of what I need in a word processor. But it's slower than somethign running locally.

    However the big killer is that my documents go away when either the server goes down or the internet is unavailable.

    I can carry my laptop everywhere. I can't get reliable internet connections everywhere. Even reliable electricity is hard some places.

    It' a nice idea, and I'll try it again in a couple years. But I'd rather s
  • Tell you what. I'm a consultant with many Healthcare industry clients. You give me a way to set up an online office server at the client's site to make the entire thing an internal app and I'll consider approaching them about it. Til then, every one of these apps is a HIPPA violation (i.e., a guarantee that the government will shut you down if you are in healthcare). Sorry, but I'm not going to send private medical history info to some random service just because they have a posted "privacy policy".

    That

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