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February 4, 2007

Google PowerPoint Clone Coming

Michael Arrington

61 comments »

Somebody took what appears to be a header file from an existing Google application and posted it as a document on Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

Based on some of the text in the document, the current code name of the presentation application is “Presently,” a play on the original Docs & Spreadsheets application, an online word processor called Writely that was acquired by Google in 2006 and later renamed.

We found this originally on Google Operating System and then made a quick copy of the Docs & Spreadsheets original file. During the time it took us to write this post the document was edited and all references to “presently” were removed. Just one reference to Google still remains. We’ve copied the entire document as we originally downloaded it to this page (”Presently”) for now. a total of 1,212 characters were redacted.

Some of the text that was in the original document is also copied below (all of this has now been removed, but the original file is here):

var MSG_VIEW_PRESENTATION=”View presentation”;
var MSG_PRESENTATION_SETTINGS=”Presentation settings”;
var MSG_DOC_TO_PRESENTATION=”Convert document to presentation”;
var MSG_DOC_TO_PRESENTATION_HINT=”Once your document is converted to a presentation, you can insert\nslide breaks using Insert > Slide from the main menu.”;
var MSG_PRESENTATION_TO_DOC=”Convert presentation to document”;
var MSG_POPUP_BLOCKER=”Presently is unable to launch your presentation in full-screen mode.\nCheck your pop-up blocker settings.”;
var MSG_NEW_SLIDE_TITLE=”New Slide”;
var MSG_UNSUPPORTED_BROWSER=”Unsupported Browser\nPresently doesn\’t support Opera and will not function properly.\nWould you like to continue anyway?”;
var MSG_SLIDE_INDEX=”Slide %1 of %2: %3″;
var MSG_NEXT=”Next”;
var MSG_NEXT_HINT=”Space, Enter, N”;
var MSG_PREV=”Previous”;
var MSG_PREV_HINT=”Backspace, Del, P”;
var MSG_ZOOM_IN=”Zoom in”;
var MSG_ZOOM_OUT=”Zoom out”;
var MSG_ZOOM_RESET=”Zoom reset”;
var MSG_TOGGLE_AUTOFIT=”Toggle AutoFit”;
var MSG_PICK_THEME=”Choose theme:”;
var MSG_THEME_BLANK=”Blank”;
var MSG_THEME_GOOGLE=”Google”;
var MSG_THEME_LIQUID=”Liquid”;
var MSG_THEME_MONOCHROME=”Monochrome”;
var MSG_TOGGLE_TOOLBAR=”Hide/show toolbar”;
var MSG_EXIT_PRESENTATION=”Exit presentation”;
var MSG_END_OF_PRESENTATION=”End of presentation. Are you sure you want to exit?”;

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 4th, 2007 at 1:24 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. Steven Bao

    February 4th, 2007 at 1:27 pm

    Ugh. The Docs and Spreadsheets line is only appealing to people who don’t read blogs like Techcrunch. There’s so many better applications out there. I’m going to expect that Google Presentations or whatever is going to be mediocre.

  2. Ed

    February 4th, 2007 at 1:56 pm

    Sorry Steven, but I find it appealing. The integration with GMail and sharing just makes life easier. Sure, there are better applications. That’s what I may use to do the formatting/cleaning up when my draft is good to go final.

  3. LastingMovie

    February 4th, 2007 at 2:11 pm

    cool, now google will have complete online office suite

  4. Anif™

    February 4th, 2007 at 2:16 pm

    I agree with #2. Sure it might not be full featured, but for a quick rough draft, this could prove critical…..especially with the GMail integration

  5. Ryan

    February 4th, 2007 at 2:17 pm

    I have agree with Steven, google apps are fun to play with but I rarely want to used them for anything important.

  6. Will

    February 4th, 2007 at 2:20 pm

    You say
    “Somebody took what appears to be a header file from an existing Google application and posted it as a document on Google Docs & Spreadsheets.”

    This isn’t correct at all. It was a language file for the localization of the service. It wasn’t posted as a document at all.

  7. Taume

    February 4th, 2007 at 3:16 pm

    Google Docs have Word and Excel features currently and will also have Powerpoint Soon.

    Seems that Google must buy more Web2.0 Companies like Writely and Jot to complete the Office Suite.

  8. Sprague Dawley

    February 4th, 2007 at 3:28 pm

    Given your earlier post about recurring service interruptions at Google

    http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....nes-again/

    don’t they have to solve reliability issues before they can hope to entice business customers into their collaboration scenarios?

  9. Frank

    February 4th, 2007 at 3:42 pm

    Curiouser and curiouser, down the rabbit hole we go…

  10. Andrew Hollister

    February 4th, 2007 at 3:49 pm

    useless

  11. China Internet Market

    February 4th, 2007 at 4:16 pm

    So much about nothing..

  12. Edwin Khodabakchian

    February 4th, 2007 at 4:30 pm

    I switched from a PC to a Mac six month ago and switched at the same time to Google Docs and Spreadsheets. It works well, it is snappy, it is great for documents which are shared with other people and it has been very reliable. Some of the other online office tools have more features but I found them slower, less reliable and not as sharing-friendly. Google tools are not always sexy when it comes to user interface but they are simple, do the work and are free.

  13. Ben Tucker

    February 4th, 2007 at 5:18 pm

    Given the name, “Presently”, I think it’s likely this was a project in development at writely before Google acquired them, and thus probably doesn’t mean that such an app is due imminently from google.

  14. Tonga

    February 4th, 2007 at 5:36 pm

    I just dont get it - google spend all this money developing these applications - why not just buy Zoho for $100 million and get it pronto?

    Seems such a waste of resources to be producing all this stuff. Just buy it an integrate straight?

  15. Ted Baumister

    February 4th, 2007 at 5:37 pm

    This is fun.

    Do they really expect people to put up their financial statements online for google to sniff?

    It is scary enough that they scan your searches, mail (gmail), chat (gtalk and orkut) for “personalization” they will also scan your bank statements…

    I think now they will be more “personalized” and also know what you can afford …so that they show you ads on just hondas and not porsches ;)

  16. Vijendra

    February 4th, 2007 at 5:43 pm

    It can also be a result of their “20% time hobby project” of one of their employees..

  17. Muralikrishnan

    February 4th, 2007 at 5:44 pm

    How many people actually use these Online office suite apps ? I really wonder

    Does Google actually believe that people would stop using MS Office and switch to them ? I continue to wonder …

  18. Farhad

    February 4th, 2007 at 5:48 pm

    I agree with those who find these types of apps not so useful today. But, think of it as a step toward the grand strategy of moving all/most desktop applications to online web apps. If you put it in that perspective then it makes so much sense.

  19. Chris Messina

    February 4th, 2007 at 6:26 pm

    I hope Jason from Preezo is watching… he’s been in private beta for over a year — would love to see a small business dad make a name for himself before Google steals his thunder.

  20. Josh

    February 4th, 2007 at 6:36 pm

    Im not sure I care whether Google expands to have something like powerpoint. Its only natural that they add such a service, but still Im not sure I trust Google with sensitive docs or presentations.

  21. Osman

    February 4th, 2007 at 8:10 pm

    What kind of compatibility with current presentation tools do you guys think this will have? Will I be able to open Keynote/PowerPoint presentations on this?

    *crosses fingers*

  22. Scott

    February 4th, 2007 at 9:12 pm

    this is useless information.

    As for the google debate above, google needs to develop new technologies with the employees they have and stop creating office crap.

  23. Anshul

    February 4th, 2007 at 10:19 pm

    Another product from google with no clear idea on what is the need to introduce this. There is Zoho which is pretty damn good. One thing that constantly perplexes me is that why don’t they release stats on how many users actively use such services.

  24. JasonM

    February 4th, 2007 at 10:22 pm

    We use the collaboration for spreadsheets regularly, although it doesn’t replace our need for Excel.

    Similary, Presently will have to be good because the new features in Powerpoint 2007 are amazing.

  25. onex

    February 4th, 2007 at 11:44 pm

    google’s gone nuts.y dont they mind their business-the search business

  26. Jordan Willms

    February 4th, 2007 at 11:56 pm

    Are any of these web based powerpoint clones ready for big business?

    PowerPoint (or presentation) decks, in the corporate world, tend to be quite large and graphics intensive, and are viewable despite a lack of internet connection.

    http://www.sumolabs.com/blog/g.....g-business

    J | sumolabs.com

  27. David Scott Lewis (in Beijing)

    February 4th, 2007 at 11:59 pm

    This is appealing — and I’ll use it. But Eric S. should stop denying that they’re not trying to eat Microsoft Office’s lunch.

    What they need are offline counterparts, e.g., Thunderbird (versus Outlook) and OpenOffice (versus Office).

    Make it TOTALLY seamless between Gmail Office/Gmail Plus (whatever they’re going to call it) and desktop apps. Fact is, there are still times that I can’t be connected to the Internet, so the offline component becomes essential.

    Gmail Office + Gspace + OpenOffice/Thunderbird = eat Microsoft’s lunch. After all, isn’t Office the primary profit generator at Microsoft?

    My “bet”: Google’s market cap surpasses Microsoft’s market cap within two years. They need GOffice (although somebody else already has this domain name) + the Google Grid. That will do it. Look up “Microsoft” in a thesaurus and you’ll find the word “toast”.

    Go Google, go!!

  28. Sleece

    February 5th, 2007 at 12:06 am

    What Google did is exactly like what I was thinking. They will bring everything to Internet. If everyone enjoy with Internet as a lifestyle, then search engine is a killer apps. That where the gold is. Try Adwords and you will understand.

  29. GenX

    February 5th, 2007 at 12:29 am

    Google haven’t had an idea of their own for 2-3 years

  30. heri

    February 5th, 2007 at 4:19 am

    powerpoint with an internet interface. mmm. completely useless in the real world.

  31. Roger

    February 5th, 2007 at 5:29 am

    It could be a good strategy to pursue in order to lower the cost of acquisitions.

    “Hey Zoho, look, we could develop our own online Office service and blow you out of the water or we could have a win-win and buy yours”….better than, “hey we’ve no offering in this space….can we buy yours?”

    >>powerpoint with an internet interface. mmm. completely useless in the real world.

    I don’t agree with that — For those who want to store all their docs online (which is the way I want to go) it’s useful and for those who don’t want to fork out for MS office it’s useful. OK, there’s Openoffice - but if you’re only doing the occasional presentation…

  32. DemonFish

    February 5th, 2007 at 5:50 am

    OK, so I’m a small business user that uses MS Office everyday. Would love to move to a cheaper alternative. This ain’t it.
    How do I use it on a plane? Or when my wireless connection is hosed? Or there just isn’t any connection to be had (we don’t all live in the Bay Area where the nearest coffee shop is 3 feet away y’know!)?

    If the answer is I should use my regular office app, then really, what is the point?

  33. Geoff

    February 5th, 2007 at 6:37 am

    We regularly use Google Spreadsheets in my office. It is perfectly sufficient for 95% of Excel users. And, of course, the sharing functionality is super-useful. It comes up short when you need to build a larger, more complex, or prettier spreadsheet. Nevertheless, I expect this to change, and would gladly pay for access to a robust version.

    Re: the concern about keeping financial info (or anything private) in a google doc: I am about as concerned about this as I am about about Wachovia having all of my financial info online. Google has a gargantuan incentive to protect the privacy of its users. If that trust is violated (either by them or a malicious hacker) they will hemmorhage users.

  34. Collargirl

    February 5th, 2007 at 8:07 am

    You people are not looking at Google’s overall strategy of world domination little bits at a time. Yes, the Google Spreadsheets and Word attempts are not anything close to the MS equals, but think about what these products are going to look like ten years down the road. Think about the number of people who will be using them then. MS started somewhere, right? Having applications that easily talk to each other and can easily be shared will offer a huge time savings. I’m also thinking that Google will be going after the SME market and like Geoff mentioned, paying to access a more robust version might be the key. A small monthly or yearly charge from Google vs. hundreds of dollars for MS Office upgrades. Where do you think small business owners are going to put their dough?

  35. It's the privacy stupid

    February 5th, 2007 at 11:07 am

    Never ever trust google with sensitive information. You will do so at your peril.

  36. Sprague Dawley

    February 5th, 2007 at 3:15 pm

    Aside from the issues about online service levels and concerns about Google as an advertising company that will leverage user info to target ads for their clients, there’s an assumption that Google even has a strategy here. Workgroup collaboration? Microsoft with Sharepoint and Groove has that in spades and already owns the corporate WAN.

    Why would a CIO risk his position by putting assets on Google servers when they can keep it all behind their firewall on their own (ever cheaper) hardware? If Google goes for cost — fewer features for cheap — MS can just trim their fat margins a bit to keep their customer base.

  37. pwb

    February 5th, 2007 at 4:58 pm

    This actually makes a lot more sense than web-based Word or Excel.

  38. Hugues de Saint Salvy

    February 5th, 2007 at 5:08 pm

    To Geoff:
    Even if you and I trust trust Google to keep our data private on their own servers, and have adequate security to not get these servers hacked, the privacy risk, as always, comes from the weakest point in the chain: your computer.
    You are probably logged into your Google account quasi-constantly, and in such a situation, your private or sensitive documents are a click away. If you leave your computer for a minute to talk to somebody, an intruder needs no password to access your documents.
    The same intruder would not be able to see your Search History however, because Google requires you to re-type your password before you can access it. I’m suggesting a similar solution for sensitive documents on Google Docs and Spreadsheets (and soon presentations). See my blog post about this subject: http://lepetitradiateur.blogsp.....ty-in.html

  39. The Bill

    February 5th, 2007 at 10:41 pm

    To Hugues: i think if someone has access to your computer and wants to get your data, they would probably look in your documents folder or some other similar location, before searching through your gmail. files on your computer are probably more vulnerable than ones on google in that respect

  40. Rem

    February 6th, 2007 at 7:57 am

    The Bill is right about that. As someone with a background in hacking and computer security, the first place someone with physical access to your computer is going to look for sensitive documents is going to be 1) your Documents/My Documents folder and 2) your Desktop/folders on your Desktop and finally 3) folders on your root / hard drives at root level. Then they’ll tend to move on to your e-mail *program*. If they have some kind of removable storage, such as a usb drive, they might copy your e-mail database to it for access later, but accessing your online e-mail account wouldn’t be #1 on their list.

    Now, that said. As the CIO for a mid sized corporation, I could NOT justify using the online office applications as they stand. Even using them in a more secured ASP environment where our companies data was secured on it’s own server with secure access allowed only to our company. Even if the applications were as feature rich and robust as desktop apps (MS Office, OpenOffice, etc.) because of potential issues, many of which have been mentioned already.
    1) Hackers. While most real hackers aren’t going to try and steal the data, that’s mostly script kiddies and computer criminals, not programmers and technology explorers, and there is a distinction despite what the media spouts, there is a very real chance that proprietary data could be lost much easier than them getting through our network security.
    2) The need for compatibility with the documents from outside companies. If we need to send a spreadsheet or document to another company or they send us one, how is that to be accomplished if we don’t have a compatible desktop app? How reliable would such tasks be with an online tool?
    3) Up time (Server side): What does my company do if Google’s App server goes down? We can’t NOT have access to our office suites. Especially company wide.
    4) Up Time (Office Side): What happens if one of more of the the offices lose their internet connection? Again, we can’t NOT have access to our office suites.
    5) Remote/Travelling users: What happens when remote users don’t have a connection? They can’t work?
    6) What happens if google eventually pulls the plug on the whole thing? All the documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc. that are in their format could be totally lost if there isn’t enough time given to recover them. And if you do have time, how do you recover them? To what format? At what cost?

    These are some major concerns for real world business use. I think the idea could pan out very nicely with some more work and some contractual guarantees. But the above concerns would need to be covered. We will also need to see a continued growth in wireless internet connectivity world-wide so that there is always access, unless an offline version of each app is provided as well.

  41. Klax

    February 9th, 2007 at 7:15 am

    Completely disagree with “heri” - 31 (irony?): “powerpoint with an internet interface. mmm. completely useless in the real world.”
    A presentation, as its name suggest, is what you want to show to others. Why would anyone want to keep it locked on a PC to carry around with you. You want to be able to access it from any meeting room in the world.

    Powerpoint was programmed at a when people would actually print presentations. Who wants that? You want to share them online so people can actually use them.

    Microsoft is in the difficult position where it has to take existing technology and product expectation created in the pre-internet era into our always online times. Google is free of such heavy baggage - a great advantage!

  42. Hugues de Saint Salvy

    February 16th, 2007 at 3:51 pm

    To “The Bill” (and “Rem”):
    That’s a valid point, however my sensitive files on my local computer are all encrypted and password-protected. Without being a sure-fire protection, that’s a first line of defense. Right now this option is not available with Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
    Hence my suggestion for increased privacy/security with a lock & password system.

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