Scobleizer - Latest Comments in Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Google Docs Fail — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:20:36 -0000

Why don't use Wordz instead: http://www.cloudforces.com/...

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

oldtimerock — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 10:57:03 -0000

I always use google docs, its very comfortable and practical thing.
programmer from free coloring pages

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Al Mellor — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 09:37:32 -0000

Shameless-yet-relevant-plug dept: I work for www.yuuguu.com If you want free and easy collaborative working, it's worth trying out, and letting us know what you think.

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

meichelina — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:05:46 -0000

access free article at http://adiestudio.com
thanks for this great article too

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Karim — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 01:12:16 -0000

Good to see some brains engaged on this topic....

I think the "Innovator's Dilemma" is an incomplete description of the Hegelian dialectic. The established player is the thesis, the disruptive newcomer is the antithesis. Where it gets interesting, of course, is the combination of the two: the synthesis.

First there were mainframes (thesis), then the disruption of the PC (antithesis). That's what the Innovator's Dilemma describes. But the PC turned into the server, the web farm, and now (the synthesis) you are seeing more and more cores, bigger and bigger iron used in server virtualization.

Similarly, first there was Microsoft Word (thesis, most of the code runs locally), then Google docs (antithesis, most of the code runs on the server). This is not the end of the story.

A few folks have made the comment that an Adobe AIR word processor would overcome most of my objections: it would have the features and performance of a desktop top, and allow you to do things like work offline, paste a picture into the app, and use fonts on your local hard drive. It would also have all of the benefits of a web app: deploys with a click, upgrades itself, doesn't require keeping discs.

That's the synthesis: the right balance of code running locally, and on the server.

It seems like Adobe figured this out, along with Microsoft and their Silverlight runtime.

It's fascinating to me how Adobe is doing demos showing how they can create ill-behaved apps using local resources on your PC, whereas Microsoft seems to be taking the approach that they had enough fun with that in the 1990s. The competition between AIR and Silverlight will be interesting.

There are definitely brighter minds than mine at Google, but I don't see how they're going to get there via AJAX. While everyone else is targeting AIR or Silverlight, will Google still be trying to write Javascript with half the performance and 1/10th the features of a runtime, that plays nice with 97 browser versions across half a dozen platforms? It seems they must, when features like "search and replace," which I believe line editors such as EDLIN successfully implemented during the Cretaceous Period, turn out to be so difficult to implement that they must be stamped EXPERIMENTAL. :-)

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

seattlenewbie — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:45:34 -0000

Google Docs a big FAIL? Yes, but that's why I like it. Just like the google home page and google search. If works with not a lot of extra crap. I use it the same reasons Robert uses it. Lots of computers with lots of different software so Docs connects them very nicely. No muss no fuss! I also love ZOHO and wish Google would buy them like tomorrow!!

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Anti-virus — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:59:46 -0000

MS don’t listen innovation, I sent them set of innovative ideas for project “ “ (I worked extra 30% of my time totally 130%). Did they read it? Yes, did they respond? Yes but, did they discuss on it? No, all they do is ….. they have numbers - chase chase chase and kill. talk talk talk about ROI, investor value…and bla bla

where is innovation?
at MSR.. after eating billions of $, recently they showed a table, and now a telescope(?) Robert has cried, I believe he has acted otherwise you don’t allow him inside again. Who wants table? Wots next? A tea/coffee cup and a rocket? Show us something that we can use every day every our, increase our productivity to 500%.

wot is fundamentally wrong at Google? transparency..Google still don’t know a simple formula: “trust = revenue”

Back to me previous comment, there is another pattern going on…US Gov rapidly increases spending (recently 100B plan) to secure people on the web.

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Christopher Coulter — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 23:01:52 -0000

Why they have all those super-smug college grads from Ivy Leagues, working 89 hours a week, with 20% free time, they can't fail. Google's arrogance and hiring practices will do them in, one-trick-pony really.

But to think that corporates, governments, medicals, schools (and everything that surrounds them) will abandon Office just for some online text editors, is Steve Gillmor-level foolish. Twizzleheady geeks might not need some of the Office 2007-level features, but thousands of customers still do.

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Robert Scoble — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:26:16 -0000

Geoff: I do and there's a reason I left Microsoft. You nailed it.

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Geoff — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:23:30 -0000

Can we ban any further discussion of this issue until all participants have read and understood The Innovator's Dilemma?

Does Google Docs currently meet the needs of a large percentage of users? No. Is it trending in that direction? Yes. What is the cost to the consumer?

Is MS married to ongoing incremental improvements of a mature product? Yes. Wat is the cost to the consumers?

Anyone see a pattern?

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Anti-virus — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:10:10 -0000

officelive / google apps does not encrypt files on their server, there is no such feature that I have seen. if you are talking about https, thats different.

my questions remains the same, how one can prevent Bill Gates/Sergey Brin, consultants/employees working at google/MS reading (possibly abusing) them. Even if they abuse, the evidence itself resides inside their servers. (one way I can prevent it by third party solution as you said)

they can argue that they have strong self discipline, but why should I believe them ?

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

macbeach — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:05:34 -0000

I found ThinkFree more than adequate for reading and writing compatible Office files. Like Office, and Open Office, it did about two orders of magnitude more things than generally wanted to do.

On Windows the Wordpad editor is about right for me, on Apple the built-in text editor will read and write Word files and on Linux there are several options for a QUICK way to create richly formated documents that can be later uploaded to Google Docs.

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Errol Mars — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:24:22 -0000

I have MS Office and Open Office on my pc but I never use them any more except when I need to print. I find Google Docs good enough for 95% of the things I do. The only thing I care about is having easy access to my documents from any computer. Google Docs gives me portability. I will never buy MS Office again.

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

david — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:14:15 -0000

hmm - Microsoft got by on creating software that was just good enough to be acceptable and Google Docs is better than that. Buzzword looks even better. When millions of people are willing to spent just a couple hundred bucks at WalMart to get a mediocre computing experience, Google Docs makes more sense than MS Office. And given that Google can sell advertising space and eventually, I'm sure, start charging small fees for extra features priority access speeds, or no advertising, or whatever, Microsoft's whole business plan is beginning to look faded.

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

chrishoward — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:00:13 -0000

Hunting around, it seems the only genuine MS Office alternative online is ThinkFreeOffice (http://www.thinkfree.com). Zoho, Buzzword, Google Docs are just text editors that seem based around HTML WYSIWYG editors.

TFO aims to be a real MS Office compatible suite.

Computerworld 12 months ago said of TFO: "If you're concerned about document compatibility with Microsoft Office, you want ThinkFree. There's simply no contest."

That's my impression too. It's biggest failing is it is a Java app and has slow screen refresh. (Which I think also means it's not iPhone compatible?)

ComputerWorld also rumored that Google was looking to buy TFO, which would be great if that had happened.

Here's the link to the CW article: http://www.computerworld.co...

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

jrb — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 17:16:10 -0000

until office live comes out of beta, i think that google's offering of allowing access to your content online is good. What isn't good is its web based productivity suite, which is 'fail'.

i'd like to see google put their ample money where their mouth is, and produce some suite addins for office, open office, office mac, etc, that allow users to save content directly from the apps to their google cloudspace. Much like microsoft do with office live.

of course, that'll never happen, because they're too busy being hypocritical and sitting on the fence (with their feet dangling on apple's side, of course)

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

epredator — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:09:08 -0000

That is of course http://symphony.lotus.com/

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

epredator — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:08:25 -0000

Lotus Syhmphony. It may not help in all situations (like mac's), but it is an option for all those machines and less need to pay full whack for the msoft stack.
I am starting to use it a bit, its still all beta. Using more open document formats should help people build nice mixed mode documents, sometimes online sometimes private.
It is amazing though isn't it that something as apparently simple as word processing is still vexing us in the tech world!

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Zian — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 15:50:59 -0000

Microsoft gives instant access to their Live Office Beta if you have a .edu e-mail and from using it, I can vouch for its integration and ease of use if you have a copy of Microsoft Office on your local machine.

Of course, I'd like to see some of the tracking features make the leap from Word to Live Office but that isn't a big deal unless you don't have Word on the computer already.

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Robert Scoble — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:36:15 -0000

Anti-virus: have you looked into the encryption used to protect data at Google or Microsoft? The privacy policies? I have. Bill Gates isn't allowed access to the data stores at Microsoft.

And, if you have a document of such high sensitivity, it's pretty easy to encrypt it in a way that no one would be able to read it, even if they had a supercomputer trying to hack it.

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Robert Scoble — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:32:55 -0000

Stephane: you'll note that I don't use Microsoft Word much anymore and have switched almost everything in my life over to online stuff.

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Robert Scoble — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:21:53 -0000

Larry Page (not the real one, according to IP addresses) if you were really a reader of mine back when I worked at Microsoft you would have remembered that I regularly praised Microsoft's competitors and took shots at Microsoft's products.

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

macbeach — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 14:03:03 -0000

Think back Robert to when you first left Microsoft. I seem to remember you saying that you would never get used to working with online documents, or any calendar/mail system other than Outlook.

I know quite a few people, young and old, but mostly old, that say the same thing to me all the time. I send them a link to a Google doc, ask them to change it and save it, I make changes. Then I show them the revision history, how we can both work on the document at the same time.

I expect oohs and aahs, but instead I get "I just can't get used to this!"

The problem of course is that their time frame for "getting used to this" is measured in minutes, not days or weeks.

I know a guy who carried around a 10 year old cell phone held together by scotch tape for years. He had painstakingly memorized all the key sequences for the phone and refused to learn a new one, even if getting a new phone would mean all sorts of new capabilities.

I'm sure there are people who will never voluntarily stop using Office. But there will be new people who come along having never used it.

The end-point is not (as Ballmer believes) Microsoft vs Google. The end-point is online data, with choice of UI (user interface) vs local with only Office, or maybe something like Open Office. Google Docs is still not only a Beta, but a limited prototype. still is is good enough for most of the documents I create.

Reuters recently used a plain old Google spreadsheet chart as the graphic on an election results page. They updated the spreadsheet behind the scenes and the public just saw the resulting graphic on a page. It stood up to huge load and was not done as a promotional stunt in conjunction with Google. They didn't pay Google for extra bandwidth etc. It just worked.

That's the future. Things on the web that Just Work, even if you don't have Windows or Office installed.

Maybe one day Microsoft will even participate in the change. But they have to put away their tape dispenser first.

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Rish — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 13:28:29 -0000

Robert,

Check out blist.com - They have an amazing online database application. It is a work in progress but they are adding features at a very fast pace and soon the application should be ready for read stuff.

The front end is done in Flex and provides a very rich experience, much better than what AJAX does today.

In my opinion, that's the direction online applications need to take if they really want to match the capabilities of thick applications.

-R

Re: Microsoft=Success; Google Docs=Fail?

Jeremy Toeman — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 12:08:14 -0000

I still don't see why the world views things so mutually exclusively. Need to make some serious docs (big legal files, massive spreadsheets, etc)? Office is the right way to do it. Need to make a quick table or short list, and need to work on it with 3 other people? Google Docs.

They BOTH fail when it comes to the other's strength - which is why IMHO Office has a great chance to take on the online collab space as well. But instead MS will probably focus on how to enable ALL of Excel to work in a browser. OH well...