Wednesday | 3 December, 2008
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Online office apps get real

Web-based suites have become real challengers to desktop applications
David DeJean (Computerworld) 17/07/2008 08:09:55
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Google Docs

Google's Google Docs sticks to the basics but does them elegantly. It offers just the classic three productivity applications: word processor, spreadsheet and presentation editor. But its user interface seems especially well thought-out.

Its file organizer is uncluttered but provides a very usable management console for uploading, downloading and creating new files in any of the suite's three applications. The Google Docs word processor and presentation apps present particularly clean user interfaces -- something they can get away with because they provide arguably the least functionality of the three suites.

Google, of course, offers a variety of Web-based apps, some of which can also be considered important parts of any productivity suite -- Gmail, for example, or Google Calendar. However, they are not really integrated with the other applications (except via a small set of links on the top left of each Google page).

Google Docs has made many small improvements in the last year, and one really big one -- Gears (until very recently called Google Gears), a software platform that works as a browser extension to let you take your documents offline, work with Web applications while you're disconnected, and then sync your changes automatically when you reconnect. Besides Google Docs, a handful of other Web apps (including rival Zoho) currently work with Gears, and more are expected.

ThinkFree Online

ThinkFree's ThinkFree Online can be used independently, but users are heavily encouraged to use it as an adjunct to ThinkFree Office, the offline software version. For example, its sync tool, ThinkFree Manager, is available to all buyers of its desktop version of ThinkFree Office, so documents stored in a ThinkFree Web account can be worked on offline and automatically synced when you reconnect.

ThinkFree has also improved the integration of its apps with a file-management console called "My Office" that supports hierarchical folders, and tracks files you have published or shared with others.

ThinkFree has also added an offline capability for all users of its online apps by letting them download and install an ad-supported version of the ThinkFree Office desktop apps, and including ThinkFree Manager, an offline file manager that keeps track of local files. When a Web connection is available, you can log into ThinkFree Manager and run a sync process that synchronizes all the documents changed while you were offline with their online versions stored in your ThinkFree Web account. ThinkFree has also improved the integration of its online apps with a file-management console called "My Office" that supports hierarchical folders and tracks files you have published or shared with others.

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More about Symbol, VIA, Google, Zoho, Microsoft, Cornerstone, PLUS, Killer, WYSIWYG, Linux, OpenOffice.org, OpenOffice, ASUS, INS, Excel, ASUS, ThinkFree
Zoho is the spreadsheet features winner. It will do pivot tables, macros, and conditional formatting -- three capabilities that mark the current state of the art for spreadsheets.
Zoho is the spreadsheet features winner. It will do pivot tables, macros, and conditional formatting -- three capabilities that mark the current state of the art for spreadsheets.
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  • If you like a clean interface, then Google's word processor is for you. The new fixed-width view is the equivalent of looking at the page preview mode in Microsoft Office.
  • ThinkFree's word processor gives you the most features and the most control over things like the content of headers and footers.
  • Zoho Writer falls in the middle of the other two word processors -- it offers more formatting control than Google Docs but it isn't as feature-heavy as ThinkFree.
  • The Google Docs spreadsheet app, like its word processor, is limited in its features, but the defaults the designers have chosen are good ones.
  • ThinkFree Calc's user interface shows the suite's devotion to Office Excel in its menus and feature set.
  • Zoho is the spreadsheet features winner. It will do pivot tables, macros, and conditional formatting -- three capabilities that mark the current state of the art for spreadsheets.
  • n its presentation application, Google Docs does one trick the others don't -- you can embed a YouTube video in a slide.
  • Although the presentation apps in the Web-based suites are more limited than the word-processing and spreadsheet applications, ThinkFree Show sticks fairly close to PowerPoint.
  • Zoho offers the widest variety of presentation design templates (about 50), and the most useful clip art and symbol collections.
  • All three Web suites let you choose contacts to share your documents with, but only Google Docs can pull in your existing Gmail e-mail contacts.
  • ThinkFree allows you to share your documents with a contact list that has been previously set up in the suite.
  • Zoho makes it very simple to share with groups; however, you must enter e-mail contact addresses manually.
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