Google Session at Cloud Expo

Gosh, isn't Google's timing grand. In a few weeks Microsoft's web-based versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint will start wending their way to market. So Google, which is going to be technically outclassed, decides to drop a re-architected Google Apps public preview Monday that's faster and chummier than what exists, collaboration supposedly being Google App's strong suit.

The changes - it apparently took Google a year to get the new functionality to work in a browser -are supposed to make its cloud apps perform more like traditional desktop apps.

Register Today and Save $550 !
Explore Sponsorship Opportunities !

Google also reminded users that it's going to turn off Google Gears on May 3 so they won't be able to use Google Apps off-line for the foreseeable future.

It's going to replace Gears with HTML 5 at some point, it's just not clear when. Google claims not that many people use the vaunted feature.

It's also dropping support for older browsers that have slower rendering engines and don't support the new functionality.

The various Google Apps, which all had different fathers, will now apparently share a common infrastructure.

Google has made real-time collaboration possible. Kinda like Google Wave users can now see editing changes as they're typed character-by-character, with comments coming in over an integrated instant messenger. The widgetry will support 50 simultaneous editors, which we predict will not make it a productivity tool.

Microsoft's competitive apps are not supposed to have real-time multi-user editing.

Google, however, has tried to make Google Apps more Microsoft-like. Docs now supports formatting options like a margin ruler, better numbering and bullets, better image placement and spell-checking as you type.

Spreadsheets have gotten a formula editing bar, cell auto-complete and drag-and-drop columns.

Uploading files to the cloud is also supposed to be easier with imported documents looking the same as they do on the desktop despite the browser used. Their formatting used to lack any uniformity.

To solve that problem Google designed its own document object model and built a new JavaScript layout engine that converts the formatting into the HTML that supported browsers like Chrome, Safari or Firefox can read consistently.

There's also a new standalone Drawing app, which is something of a misnomer. It's not an Etch-a-Sketch like the name implies; it's for building PowerPoint-like flow charts, schematics and other kinds of diagrams. And it too has multi-user editing capabilities. The drawings are said to be easy to insert in a document with the text automatically flowing around them. IE users will need IE9 when it finally arrives.

Mobile Android, iPhone and Blackberry users will be able to edit spreadsheets but just read documents.

To use the preview Google Apps customers have to set the control panel option to "enable new pre-release features," enable the new document editor in the "Document settings" page, and activate the new spreadsheet editor with the "New version" link at the top of any spreadsheet.

The update was introduced at Google's new cloud conference for CIOs called Atmosphere.

Microsoft's online applications are supposed to be available to business users next month and to the hoi-polloi in June.