Google today launched another component in their online office suite, Google Spreadsheets. This is obviously the Excel of the suite. It is currently in Google Labs, as a ‘limited test’. I found out about it reasonably early, so was able to get my name high up on the first-come, first-served basis waiting list for accounts. I have just got my invitation email.
For a full review, see Google Blogoscoped.
I’ve not had long with it, but from what I have seen, it looks like a very good product. What it does, it does well. For example, collaboration, although I haven’t tried it (I don’t know anyone else with an account), looks as though it has a very strong feature set, with the ability to see realtime updates and IM with people editing the same spreadsheet.
It also does formulae well. It has a nice list box with which you can chose a formula to use, and it works as I would expect with Excel formulae.
What it lacks are graphing options and the ability to change, for example, borders and fonts. These are features that are eminently possible (the excellent Zoho Sheet provides them). GSpreadsheets seriously needs these sorts of features if it wants its product to be taken seriously, both by home and business users.
The case for such a product is strong. With people increasingly working from home, or with people in different offices and countries, the need for strong collaborative tools in office software is clear. The increase in productivity possible will make people give up the inefficient status quo of emailing documents around and then having to collate revisions. Web 2.0 technologies, such as AJAX make this sort of functionality easily within reach, and provide an ideal solution. People will not, however, give up their current way of doing things if they have to sacrifice any of the features they have become used to.
The Google Spreadsheets product is a good one, but at the moment it is not one to get excited about. However, it will be in the future. At the moment, if you need a web-based spreadsheet for collaborative reasons, go with Zoho Sheet. It has more features and is far more mature. The only advantage Google Spreadsheets has over it is that it looks a little better.
Update: The Google Blog has a post on Google Spreadsheet. Mike Arrington isn’t impressed. He describes the Google Blog post as ‘blathering on’, and doubts whether Google has released a product since it’s core search that has changed the world. It seems there is starting to be a feeling that Google’s scattergun approach has got somewhat out of hand, and maybe isn’t working as well as most of us thought it was.
