Google Office "version 1.0" debuts
Starting tomorrow companies or organizations can deploy Google email, calendar, chat and Web page hosting for free (ad supported). The set of Google communications applications is an extension of Gmail for Your Domain, and has some limited UI customization and administration features. Later this year, Google will offer a subscription service with additional storage and support options.
Aaron Ricadela has an comprehensive story on Google's suite plans and the competitive market.
"Google's plans include prompting people who send Microsoft Office documents using Gmail to translate those files into Google's formats for editing on Google.com, presumably in a forum where ad space is up for sale. Gmail messages that include attached files currently prompt users with links to download the documents or view them on the Web. Matt Glotzbach, head of enterprise products at Google envisions a third link to edit the documents online and generate E-mail to other users in a group when the edits are done. Writely can read files created by Microsoft Word, and Google Spreadsheets can read and create Excel files and formulas, though it's unable to handle more complex Excel functions such as macros."
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