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March 31, 2008

Google Docs Inches Offline

Erick Schonfeld

30 comments »

google-docs-logo.pngGoogle’s Web-based word processor, Google Docs, can now be used offline to view and edit documents in your browser. That means you no longer need to be connected to the Internet to write a letter or draft an agreement. When you connect again, all your changes are updated. Google Docs now joins Google Reader as a Web app that can work offline. Spreadsheets and Presentations are coming up next.

This offline capability has been a long time coming. Google Docs is finally taking advantage of Google Gears, a browser plugin for creating all sorts of offline apps which launched nearly a year ago. Using Google Gears, Zoho came out with an offline version of its Web-based word processor last August.

Is it me, or is innovation at Google slowing down?

CrunchBase Information
Google Docs
Google Gears
Zoho Office Suite
Information provided by CrunchBase
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This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 2:38 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. Ryan Merket

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:46 pm

    Big guy not so “agile” is he?

  2. gilltots

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:49 pm

    it’ll be really awesome once they have a *fully* offline version that isn’t bogged down by having to run inside a single javascript thread in a web browser.

    wait, what? they already have that and it’s called Word? who knew?!?

  3. pdr tools

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    @2; you don’t understand web technology, this is significant for the fact this becomes word and its free.

    @1; I think they are very agile, most innovations (in search engines) are slight and undetectable so unless your an SEO then you wouldn’t notice.

    *also kinda double standard if you tell say “Google lost focus” when they have too many products, then say “Google is slow” when they focus

    .rb

  4. Ryan Merket

    March 31st, 2008 at 2:55 pm

    @2 - Word for Mac runs slower than Google Docs. No lie.

  5. Koka

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:02 pm

    Google should have done this a year ago when people were asking for it, now other companies have grabbed marketshare by offering the solution. It will be interesting to see what Google does when it makes docs completely offfline and see if they can integrate other services like their reader and email into the doc platform.

  6. Word

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:09 pm

    @2 - only a moron would use something that COST … Word.

    Today we have OpenOffice 2.4 that replaces Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. Google Office and Zoho are a layer above. It utilizes the collaboration technology of the web that makes revision and editing in a group environment easier. Yesterday, I was exchanging document back and forth, my email probably has 9 of the same documents b/c of the many revisions that had to be made.

    One step closer … shut Microsoft down. Whoohoo!

  7. AnonTroll

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:19 pm

    Doesn’t work with Safari

  8. Wellder

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:20 pm

    wtf? this is big news since “you no longer need to be connected to the Internet”?! 2.0 my bum.

  9. Andrew

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:23 pm

    I thought the whole idea was that they were slowing down on new stuff in order to make the current stuff more stable and feature-rich. Wasn’t that Sergei’s push about 12 months ago?

  10. David Kahn

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:34 pm

    It’s a little too late for you to say that. You should’ve said that when Zoho started using Google Gears before Google even had that presentation feature.

  11. Gubatron

    March 31st, 2008 at 3:44 pm

    I think it’s you.
    Try to code a web based word processor with offline capabilities.

  12. CARversation.com

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:20 pm

    BAD NEWS FOR MICROSOFT.

  13. Jack

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:35 pm

    Yeah, bad news for microsoft. I’m sure the WordPad dev team is really depressed. Office team, not so sure…

  14. JavaGuy

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:38 pm

    I agree with Erik. Innovation at the goog is slowling to a crawl. Guess that happens when you get huge and expand in every direction. They have their hands full with so many projects that need polishing, stability, etc.

    They are stretched thin as it is. You can tell by the botched launched of OpenSocial, Android, etc. No time to innovate when you are trying to make your past innovations products people can actually use. Most of their future innovation will probably come from acquisitions.

  15. ugh

    March 31st, 2008 at 4:56 pm

    Google Spreadsheets lives just north of unusable.

    Now it lives just north of unusable offline, eliminating the only reason I’d ever even attempt to use it instead of Excel.

  16. jro

    March 31st, 2008 at 5:46 pm

    – Start sarcasm –
    Now I have MS Wordpad capability, circa 1998, in a browser for free.
    – End sarcasm –

    Technically challenging to the developers on the project, I’m sure. Getting a big set of users interested? It’s going to be a while before that happens. It’s a step forward, but there are many steps that will need to be taken to get the broad set of users of these applications to change course.

  17. Sunil

    March 31st, 2008 at 6:52 pm

    Zoho is no doubt doing great. They now have many cool products in his family.

  18. Sunil

    March 31st, 2008 at 6:53 pm

    Recently they launched Zoho Invoice. it’s here

    http://feedshub.blogspot.com/2.....ation.html

  19. 113.com

    March 31st, 2008 at 7:14 pm

    Offline is useless… Office is more useful… Gday introduces Gdrive… yay… :-o

  20. ajay

    March 31st, 2008 at 8:25 pm

    Google step towards making Google docs available offline will also increase the fucntions that we have in Google docs

  21. Wade

    March 31st, 2008 at 9:12 pm

    Sounds good. But what I really want is Google to add a personal wiki to it’s growing array of services…..I could really use it.

  22. Irene Smith

    March 31st, 2008 at 9:19 pm

    Yaayyyyyy more competition for MS Word. Take that Microsoft!!!

    Irene Green lasers guide

  23. Harry Wang

    April 1st, 2008 at 9:19 am

    Google has there own in-house doctors now? Man…what a company.

    Harry “only read the title” Wang

  24. velioncho

    April 1st, 2008 at 1:16 pm

    yes, a good wordpad and that is where it stops. Google is the most hyped company and Google Docs is the most hyped up product. Simply useless for corporates.

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