Google Should Stop Playing Around With Wave and Focus on Spreadsheet
Disclosure: I didn't get an early invitation, so this is not a first-hand review of Google Wave. But from what I know now, I don't want an invitation anymore. It looks like too much of a productivity suck. But I do use Google Spreadsheet all the time. It is the de facto real-time, online, distributed collaboration tool for serious GTD business. It is the best tool for an agile, networked business.
But it could be way, way better. Excel is still the best spreadsheet; it has just fallen behind on collaboration (and collaboration is a show-stopper). But Microsoft could catch up there, and a lot of really sharp startups are gunning for the same space.
A Short History of the Programmer-less App Mirage
Since about, oh, maybe the days of punch cards, ventures have proclaimed some variation on this pitch: no need for programmers; ordinary folk can create really useful apps!
Fourth generation, Fifth generation! Far too many acronyms and buzzwords and brilliance and capital have been sacrificed on this altar.
On the other hand, ordinary folk create real apps on spreadsheets all day long. Millions of people do it. Businesses run on them, to the horror of IT folk. Banks and VCs burn billions of dollars based on crazy assumptions in those spreadsheets. Mr. Assumption pleads guilty. Mr. Spreadsheet says, "I was only following orders!"
Real-Time Spreadsheets? That Is So 1980s, Dude!
Yes, traders were doing real-time spreadsheets using Excel in the late 1980s, and by the mid-1990s (as in, 15 years ago) they were totally mainstream in trading rooms. Sorry if that is news to folks who think "real time" is new.
But It Could Be a Lot More
Excel has one problem: version control. That's it. Collaboration is a fancy word, but the simple problem before we had online spreadsheets was version control. You either endured chaos and frazzled nerves or you put in the kind of IT process management rules that the ordinary GTD folks were fleeing from by using a spreadsheet rather than a custom system.
Online spreadsheets that anyone can edit concurrently solved the version control problem. Problem solved! Done, finished. Can we move on now?
I wish Google would focus on the things that would now make its Spreadsheet an awesome business tool. Here are the top four items on my wish list:
1. Offline sync that does not get in the way and is totally seamless.
I gave up on Gears because it seemed to do more harm than good. I know that it is a tough engineering challenge, but I know that Google has some pretty smart people (Wave alone has 60 engineers). Offline sync is essential for serious spreadsheet use. Please don't tell serious business users that they can get Wi-Fi anywhere. Or that they will be able to very soon. Or that waiting for the bandwidth to catch up with their actions is okay.
2. The same level of sophistication in features that Excel has.
I am not a power Excel user, but even I hit limits on Google Spreadsheet. The spreadsheet jockeys who create those powerful (and dangerous) models view Google's app as a toy.
#1 and 2 are linked. You cannot have that level of sophistication without using local CPU capacity.
3. Better hooks to real databases.
Spreadsheets are database-like, but don't try anything serious that a RBMS does with its eyes closed. Add in linked data and XML assets.
4. APIs and other tools to enable an eco-system of apps that do forms and process management.
In a business, something happens when someone signs off on something. That gets tracked somewhere, as in a spreadsheet. Enable that eco-system to grow.
If Google won't seize this challenge, Microsoft will. Excel may be Microsoft's best product ever, and it understands business needs.
Wave looks like the kind of over-engineered, overly complex, promise-the-moon-at-some-far-off-date project that has gotten Microsoft in such deep trouble so often. Sure, Wave will be evaluated by a lot of big companies. Meetings will be convened to discuss Wave. Wave Committees might even be formed. Ho and hum! This is not the Google we admire. This is the Google that dreams of being Microsoft and then wakes up and finds that it is Microsoft, and it is a nightmare.
Actually, it looks like Google cannot decide whether it is trying to be Twitter ("Look at me! I'm hip, young and hot") or Microsoft ("It may not be that exciting, son, but it works, and that's what matters"). Self-conscious attempts to be hip almost always fail.
Where Google has historically scored well is in providing tools that you can be productive with immediately and that gradually grow in competence, never requiring a big decision. Millions of folks have a business or non-profit to run and need Google to build on the early promise of Google Spreadsheet.
If it doesn't, Microsoft will make the online version of Excel work as easily as Google Spreadsheet.
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I don't know about Wave. A bit too soon to sign its death certificate imho but I totally agree with the author that Google should definitely invest on the 'docs' in general and the spreadsheet in particular.
where can i learn more about using GTD with Google Spreadsheet?
As far as number two is concerned, that is the reason for Native Client for Chrome.
full disclosure: I have an above average IQ and a Wave account.
you are a moron.
thanks. that's all for now.
While I agree that Google needs to make improvements to it's other apps (such as Spreadsheet), I don't think they should abandon the work done with Google Wave.
The biggest problem for Google Wave is that they have a lot of ideas in there, and some people in the press have gone wild over the potential. Too wild. Hoping for too much too soon. The current preview should really be considered a preview to get developers outside of Google excited about the API's that Google has been working on.
I agree with Bernard Lunn's post. Google Docs has the potential to be a great collaborative enabler. The docs and presentation are pretty OK. The spreadsheet is just about usable for fairly simple jobs, but try anything complex and it's back to Excel.
Wave has been over-hyped for its current stage of development. Let's see how it is in six months or a year from now. But in the meantime, we need a mega-spreadsheet, Excel killer.
I strongly disagree with your article.
I am 32 years old, I'm a developer by trade and founder and CEO of a bootstrapped company with 5 employees.
Google Wave is something I may have a use for. I'm waiting for an invite.
I'm already using Google Docs intensely.. but I simply don't use Google Spreadsheets. Perhaps I use it 2-3 times a year.
So, to me:
Google Spreadsheets = USELESS, very rarely used
Google Documents (word processing) = enormously useful
Google Wave = potentially useful
My main gripe with Google Documents it's that they are not editable using a mobile phone. That would make it 100% perfect.
The API on the spreadsheet is good, point 4 can be done via the current API and Updates could be collected from a sheets rss feed.
Backups, isn't that just exporting spreadsheet, api does that too. Not remotely seamless at all, but the starting block are there for anyone.
Almost all Excel users use almost none of the features, so Google has a great opportunity to grow a user a
base
*grow a user base, sorry
Barney, that's a really dumb comment. Did you read what you wrote before you hit enter?
Google Spreadsheet is useless.
Zoho and thinkfree have loads more to offer. If anyone other than Google offered these Products no-one would care.
I agree with Bernard and I think that google wave after awhile will be just another tool, while online spreadsheets and similar tools are gaining a lot right now, even MS jumped on the train with the online office, so it will be interesting.
Everyone: Please read the directions, it says "To enter the contest, send an email to wave-invite at lifehacker.com, subject line "How I'll use Google Wave."
Everyone below loses.
I definitely wanna see how Wave develops! It has some much refined and new features!
Online collaborating and teaching can work, If you have trust and the right tools.
I recently tried http://www.showdocument.com - good app for uploading documents and working on them in real-time.
Most file types are supported and it needs no installation. - andy
This article is dead-on -- Spreadsheet app development is the past AND the future.
We know this well at Extentech -- it's why we built Sheetster.com.
www.sheetster.com -- it's more like Excel than GDocs, is built on a Java SDK and REST apis that allow you to automate and customize to your hearts content -- and best of all it's Open Source.
Sheetster has all the REST api hooks, live data connections, collaboration and other features you describe. Big difference is that it's Open Source, Java, and you can run it on your own servers if you like.
Sheetster was built from the ground up for developers.
Why not research some Google alternatives and TELL people about them... We are out here!
As mentioned, I cannot agree with the statement because Google Wave and Google Spreadshirts have a future. Yet, neither Wave nor Docs is perfect and competition as Zoho is very strong. Let's give Google a little bit of time until they reveal more updates to their products.
For me Spreadsheet is great and I use it daily with my coworkers. Ok it is not excel but it covers something like 95% of its features. Since the script language has been added I think the only key feature missing is dynamic tables.
It also has what can possibly become a killer feature: forms.
"Google Should Stop Playing Around With Wave and Focus on Spreadsheet"
I was thinking the same thing when I decided to do a google search to find a tool better than Google docs because of the problems, and more, that you outlined above.
How about a filing system that allows all users to file and organize as a group?!
Nazis
I hope nobody works on spreadsheets on the web! This is an idea that has resulted in everybody creating their own spreadsheets that are non standard, can not collaborate, can not extract common meaning etc. We need a better way of expressing and sharing the things than spreadsheets.
Pawel Lubczonok
ThoughtExpress
I don't think google spreadsheet is very good...Excel is there for a reason :(
Hi,
I prefer to use Excel over google spreadsheet. But spreadsheet is also not bad. It has got some good features.
I don't agree with most of this article as there is much misconception here. I made my reply in a blog post: http://www.bucabay.com/xmpp/google-wave-or-google-spreadsheet/
It’s 1992 and the dope down the hallway is asking “So what’s the deal with HTTP? Why don’t they just put all that stuff on a CD?” … and all you’ve got to show is Lynx.
Wave is a protocol to watch. The Google Wave client is important, but the really clever stuff isn’t going to happen for a while yet. A little like AJAX: in the beginning everyone made a big noise about it … but once the con-men disappeared, the hype died down, and the commentators lost interest … it became a very useful part of life on the web, regardless of whether users knew what to call it or not.