As of today, several bloggers have reported seeing this new feature, which allows users to grab all their Google Docs and batch export them as a zip file. Files can be exported in a number of formats, including Microsoft Office and Open Office formats. Users can also choose to export only certain types of docs, e.g., spreadsheets and slide decks only.

If a user is particularly pressed for time or has a larger chunk of data to export, he can also choose to navigate away and receive an email when the export is finished.

Unfortunately, any folders a user may have created or data related to authorship or shared documents do not seem to be included once documents are exported.

In saying that, you may think we're overlooking Office Live Workspace, Microsoft's own web-based service for storing and sharing documents with family, friends, or colleagues. After all, it does come with its own plugin for the Microsoft Office software which allows you to both open and save documents to and from your online workspace.

However, while both Google Docs and Office Live provide online storage and easy ways to share files, Google Docs has Office Live beat when it comes to collaboration, a key reason for the service's popularity. Where Office Live uses SharedView for screen sharing a document with another user in real-time, Google Docs allows multiple users to collaborate in real-time without the need for desktop software. Google's service can even alert you via email notifications when changes have been made. Microsoft's soon-to-arrive "Office Web Applications" may end up giving Google Docs a run for their money (especially considering it will work on the iPhone), but at the moment, Google Docs is the better choice for real-time collaboration.

Why OffiSync?

The only problem with Google Docs is that, in some people's opinion, it's just not as good as Microsoft Office software. Of course, that's an entirely subjective statement - you may or may not agree (In fact, it's likely you don't, given that you're reading a blog about web apps and web technology). Still, there's a large user base of folks who launch Office every day instead of a browser, and it's for those people that OffiSync was designed.

Test Drive

Through a simple Office plugin, you're provided with a new menu seamlessly integrated into either your Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007 software.

From the menu, you can open, save, search, email, and more, as you can see from the image above. In this case, "open" and "save" refers to opening and saving to and from Google Docs, not your PC.

Saving Files

Our one complaint involves the "Save" and "Save As" options. When we opened an Office document that was saved only on our PC, and went to upload it (save it) to Google Docs, neither "Save" nor "Save As" defaulted the title of the doc to what it was already named. Instead, it displayed "untitled." This is obviously only a minor issue, but one that becomes an annoyance if you use OffiSync to upload a lot of previously local-only files to the Google Docs service.

Browsing & Interacting with Google Docs

Using either the Save or Open menu options, you'll be presented with a dialog box which has tabs for both browsing and searching your Google Docs. There's even a drop-down box that lets you switch between multiple Google accounts if necessary.

We were surprised that you could even interact with the Google Docs service from within this dialog box. For example, a right-click on any folder gave us options to create a new folder, delete the folder, or refresh. This was especially handy as we began to upload and organize our local stash of files. You can also drag-and-drop files from one folder to another.

Searching

The search feature also worked really well, searching not only document titles, but also within the documents themselves. However, if you're looking for a document title using partial text, you'll need to use an asterisk (*) in order for the search feature to locate your file.

Collaborating

With the plugin, you can invite collaborators or modify their permissions. In a dialog box, you simply enter their email address, assign read or write permissions, then click "Save." You can then choose to write a short message and configure your notification options. It's just as easy as using the Google Docs service itself.

At the moment, in order to see real-time edits, you still have to use the Google Docs service in the browser. However, OffiSync creator, Oudi Antebi, is working on a feature that will let users see updates in real-time as two or more people open the file in Office.

Conclusion

The OffiSync software is shaping up to become a must-have add-on for anyone who can't part with their Office installation but wants to enjoy the features of Google's cloud-based service. It may even provide some competition for the upcoming Office Web Applications...if OffiSync ever expands beyond Word, Excel and PowerPoint, that is.

Antebi plans to keep OffiSync free for consumers but charge for the enterprise version, which will be available later this year. It's hard to say if that's the right strategy - after all, we're consumers and we'd be willing to pay for this plugin - it's that good. But given Microsoft's plans to debut their own Office web apps later this year, Antebi may have no other choice but to keep it free for consumers in order to stay competitive.

We just hope that OffiSync doesn't end up with the same fate as that other Google Docs/local docs sync service DocSyncer - they didn't make it. But, we think there's a chance that OffiSync will be able to thrive where that service did not thanks to Antebi's plans to integrate even more Google Services (like Google Maps) into the software in the future. That alone, could give it a unique selling point that no one else provides. He also plans on making the search feature more robust, giving users smart filters to find the files based on metadata (names of collaborators, file type, size, location, etc.). That, too, will be a useful feature - especially as more and more of our documents are transitioned to Google's web-based service.

If you want to try OffiSync for yourself, you can. The download is now available for everyone from the OffiSync web site.

Second, the tool supports snap-to-grid which makes lining up objects easy. And when you hold down shift while re-sizing or rotating a shape, you get a constrained action, which is good if you want to maintain a certain aspect ratio or orient something perfectly vertically or horizontally. Finally, you can group-select objects and resize or move them en-masse.

These are all fairly basic features of any vector drawing program, such as the open source application Inkscape or Dia. The difference here is that this tool is rendered completely in-browser using SVG, or if that isn't available, VML. So no longer do you have to go to a separate application, create your drawing, and insert it as a graphic. Now you can simply create it all online, and invite people to review and revise your drawing once it's inserted.

Clearly, this new interface, dubbed the MenuTab by Zoho, was inspired by Microsoft's Ribbon interface, which is slowly becoming the standard interface paradigm for Microsoft applications. Zoho smartly keeps the most often used functions like undo/redo, copy, cut, paste, and save outside of these tabs so that they are always available (something MS Office also does thanks to the Quick Access Toolbar). In our tests, the MenuTab worked just as advertised, and if you are comfortable with the MS Office 2007 interface, you will feel right at home in the new Zoho Writer.

Zoho plans to make the MenuTab the default interface for all of its productivity applications in the near future.

New Features

Zoho also added a few new features to Writer. Among these are improved auto-insert fields for dates and page numbers in the header and footer, a word and character count in the status bar, a LaTeX editor, and the ability to change your page layout to landscape mode. Collaborative editing is probably the most important new feature (and a necessary one, given that Google Docs has been doing this for a long time), but as Rafe Needleman points out, it's too easy to overwrite another user's edits.

Every row now features and 'edit' button on the left side, and you can sort columns easily by clicking on a box at the top of each row.  As we are working on the web, these changes are also immediately reflected and saved in the standard version of Google Docs.

Good for Text - Bad for Math

For large spreadsheets, the small screen on a mobile phone makes extensive work on your documents rather arduous. The mobile version is also severely limited, as you can't actually edit any cells that hold mathematical formulas, and when you update a number in your spreadsheet, the results of the formula are not automatically updated. Instead, you will have to reload the page to see the new results.

Because of this, the mobile version of Google Docs spreadsheets is currently only really useful if you just want to edit relatively simple lists of texts.

Documents and Presentations?

We expect that Google will also allow users to at least perform some edits on documents and presentations in the near future, but given the current limitations of the supported mobile phones, we don't expect to be able to create a full-blown presentation on our iPhones anytime soon.

DocVerse currently consists of a 1 MB Office 2007 plug-in that gives Microsoft's desktop software new collaboration and synchronization abilities. Once installed, every time you hit the "save" button in Office, a web version stored online is automatically updated, too. The web version also comes with a link you can share.

If that part sounds a lot like what's already available in Microsoft's Live Workspace, that's because it is. Like DocVerse, Live Workspace users can also install a plugin into Office that keeps files between computer and web in sync.

However, the key difference between DocVerse and any of Microsoft's current offerings is the service's online collaboration abilities. With DocVerse, a group editing feature lets multiple users edit one copy of the same document without having to check it out, then check it back in.

To begin using the software, you can share a document with others using either the URL provided or by entering in the email addresses of those you want to share with. As changes are made, they're synced back to the online version of the document. The DocVerse software then uses a confliction resolution system to deal with any potential conflicts between the updates. As the edits continue, DocVerse automatically creates new versions of the document while saving the older versions in case you need to revert back.

DocVerse users will also see their changes categorized in an in-file "News Feed" which appears in the sidebar of any open document. For users without Office, feedback can be given about the shared files straight from their web browser.

At launch time, the plug-in works with Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 only, but support for Word and Excel 2007 will roll out later this spring as will support for Office 2003. DocVerse is Windows-only.

Some Questions

Microsoft announced the upcoming Microsoft Office Web applications at their Professional Developers Conference in October. With these web applications, due in the next version of Office (Office 14), users will be able to create, edit, and collaborate on Office documents through the browser (IE, Firefox, or Safari). Despite some initial rumors, Office Web Applications will not require Silverlight to run and they'll even  work on the iPhone via the Safari browser.

That obviously made us wonder - how will DocVerse compete with Microsoft's own offering? Says DocVerse CEO Shan Shina, the key will be backward compatibility. Where the official Microsoft Office Web Applications will focus only on the latest and greatest version of Office (he presumes - no one really knows), DocVerse will aim to be compatible with Office 2003, 2007, and the upcoming Office 14. Given that 35-40 percent of the market still runs Office 2003 and 15-20 percent runs 2007, he imagines it will be a while before everyone upgrades to Office 14 - web apps or not.

While capitalizing on the "good enough" trend, the company will also focus on how they can best complement the newer Office 14 when it becomes available. In other words, no matter what Microsoft throws out there, DocVerse plans to provide the missing features.

Try it! (Invites)

To learn more about how DocVerse works, Web Worker Daily has a great hands-on review. Our readers can try DocVerse for themselves by clicking here: http://www.docverse.com?ic=RWW. There are only 200 invites available, so that link is first come, first serve.

Disclosure: Sarah Perez also writes for Microsoft's Channel 10.

For many users of Google Docs, that answer is "no." According to Google's Help Topic on SSL as well as their Google Apps Edition comparison guide, SSL is a feature only made available to users of Google Apps Premier and Education Editions. However, in some informal testing on our part, it appears that users of Google Apps for Your Domain were given that option as well, despite the fact that their Google Apps edition clearly reads "Standard." For everyone else, though, Google Docs remains an unencrypted HTTP session.

In a business or educational setting where Google Docs is being used, your I.T. admin has probably turned on SSL for you by activating the feature that forces SSL sessions for all users. If they have not, though, you can still switch on SSL for yourself, says Google, but their help documentation fails to explain how that can be done. All the documentation says is that "your users can enable HTTPS when necessary."

What they probably mean is that anyone can type in "https" when entering in the URL for a Google Apps service in the address bar of their browser. Since your average internet user doesn't think about these sorts of things, though, that's probably not the best solution in terms of security.

While we hope that any I.T. admin in a corporate setting knows well enough how to enable a basic security feature such as this, it would still make us more comfortable if these sorts of things were enabled by default. The only reason to not enable SSL is because it can slow down your connection to Google services. Still, in the event of network issues, I.T. admins could temporarily disable this feature to speed up access for their users. But Google hasn't chosen to make security the default - they've chosen speed.

Outside of Google Apps, everyday users of Google Docs don't have an option in their Google Docs settings to force the service to always use SSL. Like those with a neglectful I.T. admin, these Docs users would have to remember to type in the "https" prefix if they want to use a secure connection.

SSL Implemented Haphazardly

Manually typing in "https" is all well and good, but let's face it - most users won't ever know to do this and those of us who do know won't remember. Not only is this process laborious, it's inefficient, too. For example, those who want to take advantage of the Gmail Calendar and Docs widgets, which allow for one-click access to other Google services from within Gmail, would have to forfeit a secure connection in order to do so. The only recourse would be to not use the widgets at all, and that certainly disrupts our workflow.

However, if you've enabled SSL within your Gmail settings, connections to your other Google services will also be encrypted if you use the navigation bar at the top left of your Gmail...but only if you use the navigation bar. Even when signed into your Google account, typing in "docs.google.com," "calendar.google.com," or using the Gmail widgets will still take you to the HTTP site.

At Least They Have SSL...

What's really unfortunate about this potential security issue is the fact that Google is actually leading the way among webmail and web app providers when it comes to offering SSL to its users. Although other free webmail services from Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL, for example, may authenticate you upon login via HTTPS, they drop down to unencrypted mode immediately after the authentication is completed.

However, it could be argued that those other services are not claiming to be a secure replacements for business use. Since Google promotes Apps as a web-based alternative to expensive desktop software, many people mistakenly assume that means Google services are, in general, "pretty much" secure for personal use, too. Apparently, that's only true to a point.

It's also worth pointing out that nothing, not even SSL, can keep a determined hacker out of your account. As ZDNet reported at the beginning of the year, even SSL can't keep blackhats from hijacking your session through the use of "sidejacking," a trick that enables hackers to take control of any Web 2.0 app that relies on saved cookie information. (There have also been other reports of Google Docs security issues, but we couldn't reproduce the problem.)

Providing SSL to everyone is the least Google could do. And to the other webmail/web app providers out there: it's time you followed suit.

Compete also compiled engagement metrics for Google Docs, which clearly indicate that the service is still mostly popular with casual users. The average user uses Google Docs about 3 times a month, a number that has held stable for the last 12 months. Interestingly, the average user only spends about 5 minutes per month on the site.

Zoho

Compete also provided us with some additional data about Zoho's office suite, one of Google Docs closest competitors. Zoho saw about 310,000 unique visitors in October, but those users spent close to 10 minutes per month on the service. While this is twice the amount of time users spent on Google Docs, Zoho's users also visit the site about 3 times a month.

Update: We also received some additional information from ClickStream Technologies . ClickStream's survey compares usage numbers for Google Docs, OpenOffice, and Microsoft Word. The results of this survey are very similar to Compete's statistics, both with regards to how often the apps were used and for how long.

Casual Users

Google Docs clearly still mostly attracts casual users. Those users who spend most of their days in word processors and spreadsheets have not switched over to web based productivity applications. About a year ago, we wrote that Google Docs wasn't ready for the enterprise, and this data from Compete shows that, a year later, it still hasn't been adopted by power users (though the Compete study did not look at enterprise and business users, who would be running Google Apps on their own domain).

In Google Docs, using these new tools would be a lot easier if Google had included them in the right-click menu or provided keyboard shortcuts for them.

Some More Important Features are Still Missing

Also, one feature that is still sorely missing and could make Google Docs a real alternative to Word for students is support for footnotes and endnotes. Both Zoho and Thinkfree Online already have support for these features.

Also, more and more students and college campuses are switching over to Microsoft Office 2007 and Google Docs can still not read the native Office 2007 .docx files. We can see why Google would object to this file format, but not supporting it only complicates matters for a lot of students.

It is somewhat strange that Google is partnering with these relatively old-fashioned companies, especially at a time when Google itself is replacing these already for a lot of students.

So are ReadWriteWeb readers, many of whom are early adopters of Internet technology, using online word processing services now instead of desktop software? Er, no.

Less Than 1/4 of You Use an Online Word Processer as Your Main Tool

Let's delve further into the results, firstly for the desktop software. Last year MS Word got 46% and this year 48%. So not much has changed for the dominant office software supplier, even with RWW's Net savvy readers. OpenOffice slipped a bit, down from 17% last year to 15% this year. Overall, 76% of readers still use a desktop software program as their main word processing tool (counting the 8% who use a text editor for this purpose). That's up slightly from 74% the same time last year.

That means that less than 25% of our readers use an online service as their primary means of doing word processing. The best of the online breed was Google Docs, with 17%, up from 11%. This is a good sign though, because Google Docs is now second behind only MS Word.

Google Docs Gains Users, But Not From Microsoft

What was a little surprising is that the Web startups competing with Google Docs all performed worse than last year. ThinkFree got 2%, Buzzword 1%, Zoho 1%, and Zimbra less than 1%. ThinkFree and Zoho both polled at 5% last year and Zimbra 2% (Buzzword wasn't in last year's poll). This indicates that Google Docs has gained users not from MS Word... but from the online startups.

Tell us your reaction to these results. What's happened to the startups? Are they doomed in this market dominated by the big guns?

Related:

• Office Live Workspace vs Google Docs: Feature-by-Feature Comparison
• Adobe Launches Online Office Suite and New Flash-Enabled Acrobat 9
• 10 Must Have Online Office Apps

You can make your own prediction here.

Poll: Best Internet Bigcos of 2008

We've reached the halfway point of 2008, so time for a half-year assessment of the Internet bigcos. This week we ran a poll asking for your picks for best bigcos so far in '08. We did a similar poll last July - and Facebook just edged out Google for the RWW popular vote. At the end of '07 we named Facebook our Bigco of the year. We also ran the poll in 2006. Here are the results this time round:

At time of publishing, Google had 19%, followed by Apple on 18% and Mozilla 17%. Also in double figures were Amazon and Adobe, both of which got 12%. Interestingly, Facebook fell to 8% and the other two parts of GYM, Microsoft and Yahoo, didn't fare so well either. Microsoft scored 6% and Yahoo 5%.

See also: Internet Bigcos - How The Market Sees Them and It's Official: There Is No Bubble

Google Docs Goes Down - How Long is Too Long for You? (POLL)

Earlier this week, Google's hosted office suite Google Docs was down for more than 30 minutes, rendering documents inaccessible and users frustrated. Short outages are not uncommon, but it was a good time to ask - how long is too long for you? At what point would you personally deem a web service too unstable to use, and presuming that varies from service to service, what's your requirement for Google Docs?

Image credit: hans s

Update:After 45 minutes of downtime, Google Docs appears to be back up.

To be fair it appears that Google Docs has only gone down longer than a few minutes a few times since the service launched. The service is generally very reliable, the collaboration features are useful and it's free for consumer use. If those few service outages cost your company a substantial amount of money or inconvenience, that may be too much down time though.

On the other hand, maybe serious business never had any place on Google Docs in the first place. What do you think?

We appreciate your input; this is an important question and reading your replies will give us something to do while we wait for access to our docs to return. We probably should have enabled Google Gears.

In the short term, products like Google Gears, a browser plug-in that takes web apps offline, are a necessary evil, bridging the gap between desktop and web -nothing more than a transitional piece in the desktop to cloud computing move.

The offline component of Docs is clearly designed to make the move from desktop suites to web apps more comfortable and less off-putting for those accustomed to the stable, always available nature of their trusty desktop programs.

However, by focusing on an offline web, one has to wonder if this is really progress: if we wanted an offline word processor, well...don't we already have several of those available already? Shouldn't a product like Google Docs be more focused on what makes them unique in the office suite space instead?

Besides, going offline isn't easy - which is why you don't see many other web 2.0 developers taking their web-based startup to the desktop world. Additionally, offline apps aren't nearly as good as their online selves: As Harry McCracken wrote on a Sunday night blog post on PC World, "No current Gears-enabled app is anything like its full-blooded self in offline form--and since most of them are stripped-down compared to traditional desktop software even in their online versions, that means the offline ones are barebones at best."

It's true. When you go offline with Google Docs, you're missing out on one of the features that makes their suite worthwhile - real-time collaboration.

For obvious reasons, SaaS apps, like Google Docs, have trouble in a disconnected world. And while this problem might be a deal-breaker for some people now, it won't always be the case. Before too long, being offline will be the exception - even airplanes have started offering internet access - not the rule. And who knows what Verizon's spectrum win will bring a few years down the road?

So, yes, offline access is important now, but not as important as a few years ago, and certainly less important with each passing day.

Hopefully, companies like Google and Adobe and others focusing on providing offline tools, won't get too sidetracked in their need to compete with the desktop world since they would only be perfecting what will soon become an infrequently used feature.

Instead, the focus for these tools should be on the features that only an internet-connected program can offer, things like real-time collaboration or Docs' GoogleLookUp feature. These will be the driving forces to prompt mainstream use of online suites, not the fact that they work sans internet.

Maybe Google Gears isn't backward progress exactly, at least not today, but it's important for these web companies to keep their priorities straight: offer users amazing features they can't get in an offline program, then worry about fighting for desktop space.

"You know, you look at some traction that some of our competitors have gotten. It’s quite small. It’s quite niche. And I think one of the advantages I think Microsoft brings on the table is how can we scale this kind of capability to millions and millions of people. And Office Live Workspace is really the first service that’s in this area. And you’re going to see us, which we’ve already showed, is we’re going to rapidly improve it."

Eric Gilmore also clarified the confusion around the Microsoft Live brand:

"When we think of Live, it’s all user managed. So the content is all about me. All the services is, kind of, I control -- my company or my organization I work for really don’t control live services. That’s kind of the piece that’s important. And typically, live services today are free, so they’re free online so they can take advantage of that."
emphasis ours

This is an interesting point, becase traditionally Microsoft Office has been a system controlled by the IT department and CIOs. With Office Live Workspace, contends Gilmore, much of the control goes back to the user. So the question becomes: how are CIOs and the IT department dealing with that? I thought Gilmore's response to this was especially revealing about Microsoft's Office Live strategy:

"Well, I talk a lot to CIOs and other businesspeople and enterprises.

And I think they’re really grappling with trendy term of consumerization of IT. They’re seeing this kind of wave of really innovative Web 2.0 application sinking into the enterprise. And quite frankly, they’re struggling with how to deal with them. Do they embrace them? Do they shut them down? And I think there are significant challenges they have to deal with: Security, privacy, manageability, a lot of the core things that IT professionals care about.

When we look at the problem they have to deal with, a lot of times, we get the question, "Do you guys support Workspace being in the enterprise?" And I absolutely respond, "We love it. We hope people use it." If it goes in the enterprise, it’s a great thing because typically it’s solving frustration or pain for those employees. And today, a CIO and IT pro have to deal with consumer email being the biggest leak in information outside the firewall.

And we look at Workspace as providing a great collab experience, whether it’s ad hoc collaboration or not, if you don’t have something like SharePoint where there is a lot of that security and privacy manageability aspects to the infrastructure. So we think it’s a bridging aspect. It’s better than email. We think it’s a great ad hoc collaboration. It’s free."
emphasis ours

Eric concludes that longer term, Microsoft sees Office Live Workspace as "a way to bridge the gap between the Live ID world and the Active Directory world."

Conclusion

Perhaps what it comes down to, when comparing Microsoft Office Live Workspace with Google Docs, is this: Microsoft sees its product as a 'lite' version of SharePoint; whereas Google, despite its past protestations that it aims to complement Microsoft Office and not replace it, is very much about routing around the need for big bulky desktop apps like MS Office and SharePoint.

The word "bridging" or "bridge" was used a few times in the podcast, which to me indicates that Office Live Workspace is just as much about enticing customers to 'upgrade' to the desktop experience (MS Office, SharePoint) than it is about bringing the Web to MS Office users. This is an entirely valid strategy, but it still means that Microsoft's entire office strategy depends on desktop software.

That leaves the door ajar for the likes of Google and Zoho to take market share from MS Office, over time, by providing a completely 'web native' approach.

Check out the full podcast with Eric Gilmore of Microsoft on ReadWriteTalk.