June 6, 2006

Google Spreadsheets - Collaboration to the Max

First Google brought us search - ho hum. Then it brought us Gmail - WOW! Then it turned the faucet on full blast and brought us databases, notepads, calendars and now spreadsheets.

If you are a very small business and want to use applications hosted on the Internet and not on your computer, Google has a lot of tools now and coming.

These tools are more than just about being against Microsoft but are more about offering options - Microsoft or not.

These tools are simple to use and I expect will get more feature rich.

The NY Times writes Google executives said Monday that the spreadsheet program would make it possible for as many as 10 people to simultaneously edit a spreadsheet document online and chat about it using Google's instant messaging program.

The new service will be able to handle several hundred formulas used to manipulate data in Excel, but not more complex functions like macros, said Jonathan Rochelle, the Google Spreadsheets product manager.

"When people want to share and collaborate, we think this product fits in well," Mr. Rochelle said.

The question is do you want to pay for an online tool, like Intuit's QuickBase and eUnifyDB (which are very good) or use a free tool (for now) that Google provides?

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