Google Acquires Zenter - Web Office Suite Now 99% Complete
Less than 12 hours after we posted our review of the Web Office Suite space, Google has seemingly put the last piece of the jigsaw in place for their suite. Today Google announced it has acquired the assets of Zenter, "a company that provides software for creating online slide presentations." This technology will be added to Tonic Systems, a technology for presentation creation and document conversion. Tonic Systems was acquired in April by Google. Nick Gonzalez says that "Zenter was focusing on the front end of the application, as well as community/sharing features", so it will be a nice complement to Tonic.
Prior to the acquisition, Zenter's homepage noted it was "preparing for private beta" and it had the usual email form for interested beta testers to fill out. They were also looking for people with "serious JavaScript and/or Java programming skills".
So it is likely that Presentations capability will be added to Google Docs & Spreadsheets soon (meaning Google will have to re-think the name for that product!). As GigaOm notes, Google still needs to work on its overall product integration - i.e. making it a true suite offering - and the UI/brand needs work too.
Google Apps at this point is a fairly higgelty-piggelty product offering, as indeed is its closest suite competitor Zoho. Both have plenty of Web Office apps, but there is nothing from either company that jumps out and says "I'm a Suite!". Therefore both Google and Zoho have a ways to go to compete with Microsoft Office.
Here is an updated Web Office Suite table, after this news today:
Web Office Suite: Core Products
| Calendar | Word processing | Spreadsheets | Presentation | ||
| Google Apps | Y, Gmail | Y, Google Calendar | Y, Google D & S | Y, Google D & S | Y (Zenter + Tonic) |
| Zoho | Y, Zoho Mail (private beta) | Y, Zoho Mail (private beta) | Y, Zoho Writer | Y, Zoho Sheet | Y, Zoho Show |
| ThinkFree | N | N | Y, ThinkFree Write | Y, ThinkFree Calc | Y, ThinkFree Show |
| Zimbra | Y | Y | Y | Y | N |
| Microsoft Office Live | Y | Y | N | N | N |
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they cant use the name Goffice
but Im guessing its gonna involve the word suite
as in google productivity suit
Posted by: atomic1fire | June 20, 2007 10:19 AM
the thought of google spreadsheets being a serious competitor to excel is pretty much a joke. it really seems like it was designed by programmers as a reverse engineering project, completely oblivious to actual user behaviors such as keyboard control (arrow control of cell selections, etc.)
Posted by: feedmashr.com | June 20, 2007 8:35 PM
This technology will be added to Tonic Systems
http://www.lyricsrec.com/
Posted by: Mail Adam | June 26, 2007 2:58 AM
While Google Spreadsheets may not satisfy the needs of Excel power users quite yet, for simple spreadsheets its excellent. I've used it for equipment list, budgets, to do lists, etc. From the end-user perspective we're starting to see viable alternatives to Office and in turn a more diverse marketplace.
Posted by: David Tames | July 15, 2007 8:09 AM