OK, so it’s not really – but that’s how I view it. Google Documents released their presentation goodies so you can now do that whole “create slide presentations” (of course, I wanted to call it a “deck” or “powerpoint” – how kleenex…). I rather expect to see a lot of those at future conventions and such.
The reason it is and isn’t a full on attack of MS Office is that it doesn’t do nearly as much as Office does in any area. But is it good enough? The price is certainly low enough that I’m not sure you’d really need to purchase office if you didn’t have to interact with BigCorp america. Of course the big win is that the platform neutralizer web browser is all you need to make it go.
So now Mac has it’s own suite, Google has it’s thing, there’s Open Office, and of course ye olde Microsoft I-can’t-think-of-anything-else-they-need-so-fuck-wth-now-classic-menu-metaphor Office. So where will it go? Mac is “make it pretty”. Open Office is run anywhere, as is Google. Some folks fear the Google. Probably with reason. Office is innovating in its UI and fucking up corporate productivity across the world. Not that I have an opinion there.
I’ve personally moved to using Excel for it’s analytics functions more and more. There’s not much of a substitute for the pivot-chart backed by a database lookup. Cheaper than a lot of tools by far, and a hell of a lot faster than rewriting SQL queries a dozen times over. Where’s Open Office, Google, and our fledging wonder “Numbers” on the Mac? I expect it’ll be coming. But that may be niche enough that it always costs money. Makes sense – it’s a relatively narrow focus that I’ve got with that stuff.
Oh – by the way? I don’t recommend getting Office 2007 on Windows. The phrase I caught recently was “two steps forward and one step back is still one step back…” – and it stays with me on this one.
Rhonabwy 