Google “Office Standard Edition” Now Complete

Google finally launched its “PowerPoint” equivalent, called “Google Presentations” as part of its online “office” collaborative suite “Google Docs & Spreadsheets” (and Presentations). This release did not come as a surprise and its development acknowledged by Google in April this year.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt can beat around the bush and not say it, but no matter how you see it, yes, Google’s application is to a certain degree a competitor to Microsoft Office.

It is true that the limitations of the online equivalents of the office applications will not make MS Office power users switch to the online alternative, but it is a viable option and feasible alternative for a large number, which is IMO the majority, of users. That many of those users did not buy an Office license in the first place is a bit misleading, not everybody uses a pirated version of the software. A large number of users have Office on their computers because of volume licenses acquired by their employer.

The Question is, if the employers continue to purchase volume licenses of the Microsoft application as they used to in the past or if the one or the other might takes a closer look at the free Google alternative. For companies that are concerned about support for a free web 2.0 application, Google does offer paid solutions via their “Google Apps” products, which is available in a number of different editions, including small business and enterprise.

While the functionalities of the web pendant are basic are they for most day-to-day application more than sufficient and in contradiction to their “big brother” for the desktop, much easier to use.

Arnold Zafra at SearchEngineJournal.com pointed out something that is interesting.

“One thing that the presentation tool lacks is the facility to embed presentations on blogs and sites. It would have been better if this feature is included or to be included later on.”

Good point, but until Google Presentations will support a feature like that, the open source alternative “Slidy” has to suffice, I guess.

Now my question is: When can we expect the “Pro Edition” of Google Apps? “Google Database” (MS Access) is missing. While we are talking about Microsoft alternatives on the Web…How about an online version of MS Project or MS OneNote? C’mon Google, you are not competing with Microsoft anyway, aren’t you? I am just kidding, or am I?