Google Docs has some real competition

Stan Beer
Thursday, 12 October 2006 13:15

Opinion and Analysis

Like Google Docs and Spreadsheets, neither Zoho nor Thinkfree have really solved the documents storage issue satisfactorily. The Google method of tagging documents is not really the way users are accustomed to organizing their information with the Windows folders based filing system.

Thinkfree makes the best attempt, with a rudimentary web top filing system that simulates the Windows My Documents folder. However, the comparison is superficial, as it’s nowhere near as powerful, not even enabling simple things like folders within folders.

Zoho is reportedly out of beta now, has single sign-on for all its applications and has said that it is working on developing and integrating a web top system.

It’s fairly safe to say that all of the online office productivity tools will do the job if your needs are simple. However, none appear to have quite the industrial strength grunt yet for business strength applications. No doubt, however, they will before too long.

In one respect, however, all of the online office tools totally outshine their desktop equivalents – collaboration. It is so much easier for a group of users to share access to a document that stored in a central location. It sure beats passing it around by email – especially if the file is large.

Thus, we may look forward to a not too distant future, when web access is ubiquitous, in which we are no longer paying through the nose for office productivity software and we no longer care which operating system we’re using. Bring it on, I say.