Google Spreadsheets

Spreadsheet, Chat, Goog

[longen]

Google are today? releasing a new spreadsheet with built-in Chat facility:
[techtree.com ]

[bufferzone]

Anybody have the direct link? I can’t find it in labs yet

[engine]

[google.com...]

It's not yet available and you have to register in advance for the limited test.

[google.com...]

Google is today set to launch a Web-based spreadsheet program that will allow people to view and simultaneously edit data while conducting 'in-document' chat, a Google product manager said on Monday.

The launch of Google Spreadsheets puts the search engine in even more heated competition with Microsoft, whose desktop-based Excel spreadsheet program is a standard office tool.

Google Spreadsheet story [news.cnet.co.uk]

[bts111]

Keep it coming! :)

[PaulPA]

Initially not having charting capability is a drawback but I'm sure they will add that down the road.

[ByronM]

worthless.

Spreadsheets are usually containing financial or mission critical data - web enabling them means nothing and especially trusting the data to google is assinine.

google, stick with search.

[carguy84]

I don't see it as being an Excel competitor, more so google starting into the SharePoint market.

[hdpt00]

My initial impression of the beta: not switching in a million years, no use for it.

[exposure]

ByronM -

True; but there are a lot of non-financial uses for a spreadsheet and often would be a benefit to being able to easily share data with others without having to worry about offline software versions (esp. as MS Office dies, people aren't always going to have it even at work anymore).

[bostonBeans]

After finance, I guess the next largest group of spreadsheet users would be academic (arguably). In this space, the collaboration and integrated chat tools seem like they will be very useful.

I submitted my request for invitation, and have not heard back yet - so I don't have any specific comments as of yet.

-bB

[gpilling]

I have had a look at the Google Spreadsheets - and I like it.

The functionality of it is more limited than MS Excel (as expected) but it does have most of the features I use in a daily basis. It does the normal functions like ADD, SUBTRACT, AVERAGE, as well as financial and statistical functions found in Excel.

Some notable differences between Excel and GS is that there is no help in GS. I tried doing a simple PMT calculation and without a little guide as to which number to put in which order, I had to do a little trial and error. For the record it is (interest/12, # of pmts, amount, final balance)

Things that it lacks in comparison - Goal Seek, Pivot Tables, Text to Columns, Conditional formatting - well, I guess I wont be getting rid of Excel just yet. I do think it is a good start, and it will probably meet the needs of most light users. Heavy users are probably switching from Excel to SPSS anyway (my wife uses it, but I can't figure it out)

A major omission is the lack of "drag and fill" functionality. It is not possible to grab a corner of a cell and drag the formula down, or fill a column of numbers, like you can with Excel.

One feature that will be nice for my use, is that I will be able to share documents with my partners in other cities easily, and we will always be on the same version. Currenlty we waste too much time making sure we have the same version, and this will be a help. Besides, I will be able to show them data and not let them change it :)

[stef25]

I haven’t received access yet, but I could see myself using this to keep track of simple things like domain names of clients (when they expire, when they were renewed), ad earnings, basic personal finance etc

I’m on the move more and more and plan to do work while on a three month holiday. The combination of portable apps and web apps is very useful for these kind of scenarios

[Brett_Tabke]

I was privey to a test by Gidon Wise of MySpreadSheet [myspreadsheet.com] of a online spreadsheet program. He was even nice enough to share some code. We have used it to collaberate on alot of stuff for conferences. The reason I bring it up is not to promote it, but so that people can have a look at an online spreadsheet and see it's history (eg: Google was not here first). btw: some might recognize that name as a pubcon attendee...

It is pretty sweet, but being tied to the web, it has some serious limitations. I can't see that Googles will be any different. However, I do forsee Google putting out a desktop companion program that will drive the online version. eg: basically only the data will live on G's servers.

hey - sounds like microsoft share point, eh? lol

[PaulPA]

Another very strong contender with a lot of features is iRows.

I believe there is a tremendous market for online productivity tools. As we move to a wireless world, I'd rather carry around a small Internet-accessible device (e.g., origami-style, oversize PDA) than a laptop to do spreadsheets, presentation, word processing, etc. The day of the "network computer" may be coming soon (can hear Ellison laughing now!).

[jbinbpt]

This is sweet...
I see two thing I like immediately,

Multiple users looking at a spreadsheet and in Google chat at the same time.....
Not having to store sheets in my gmail.....

[ogletree]

I like it. I can uninstall excel now. I can open and save .xls files.

[Hobbs]

Google is following the exact instructions on how one tackles the issue of eating an elephant.

[dillonstars]

As we move to a wireless world

Absolutely! I'd rather have my data safe on a server than on my wireless devices that can easily be lost or stolen. Accessing the data instantly on whichever device I have to hand is also important...

[jbinbpt]

I got in. Looks good so far.

In beta you can only share with users that have gmail accounts.

[exposure]

For those who have gotten in to the Beta - are you all GMail users?

[ogletree]

I am a gmail user.

[exposure]

Nevermind - I just got in with my non-Gmail Google account. FYI: I requested access at 9:15am ET and got my email just now exactly 6 hours later.

[MinistryOfTruth]

Im not a gmail user and I got in.

I like it, but it really won't be replacing excel in a major way any time soon.

[joco]

hahaha, I showed this to my boss and he said, "I do NOT want two people working on the same spreadsheet, especially over the Internet, especially in Google's archive."

Sorry Google, my usage has been forbidden... Not that I couldn't have just emailed the Excel spreadsheet to someone and not that I really love working on spreadsheets anyhow. c'mon.

[pontifex]

microsoft:
2005 Revenue (USD):39.79B
Net Profit Margin:31.59%

google:
2005 Revenue (USD):6.14B
Net Profit Margin:23.66%

well, only 33 Billion difference left, I would say, Google almost got them with that little tool, that they give away for free :)

[NeverHome]

I registered my interest to try out Google Spreadsheets about 6 hours ago. I have not yet yet received an invitation from google.

Just now, however, while logged into my gmail account, I pointed my browser to [spreadsheets.google.com...] (on the off-chance there'd be a landing page there), and surprise! I jumped straight into the spreadsheet program! Sweet.

[techrealm]

this is exactly what I need to deal with class scheduling internally. Sales and training don't always have the same updated info about who's coming to classes and how many people they have coming with them. And the list gets updated many times a day all month.

As for using this for financial uses, it would get limited play here as well, after our horrible experiences with a certain all in one ASP that we paid for, in more than one way, we could never trust our core data to a free service no matter which billion dollar gorilla of the day has it available.

[vincevincevince]

I got my invitiation last night and decided that I'd use Google Spreadsheet in place of OpenOffice Calc all day today as a test. Yep, I'm trying to use it for everything, no holds barred.

Observations so far:
1. Menus do not close when you click the menu-heading

2. Have to disable FlashBlock in firefox (the flash elements are hidden so no 'play' button available)

3. Works with Adblock on in firefox (great - adsense's interface is very annoying in that respect)

4. File>Open selects all the elements on the page and fails to open any dialog.

5. Open a Spreadsheet direct link will not load a 1.4Mb .csv file. ***First serious failure as I cannot manipulate the affiliate feed I'm dealing with this morning***

6. Will not load 1.6Mb .xls file (same file as the 1.4Mb CSV but converted to .xls). Both cases the error is 'Document contains no data'.

7. Tried to copy-paste from OO Calc into Google Spreadsheet (1885 rows x 10 columns). Browser unresponsive for almost 5 minutes, following which no cells had been filled. Small red error message (bottom right) reads "Ooops, you can't paste that much text from the clipboard".

I've given up on Google Spreadsheets for now. It can't handle the first task I tried, loading a document.

I wonder if Google Spreadsheets will have a direct upload button to Google Base?

[exposure]

I'm surprised that people are trying to judge this product vs. the offline software they are used to. Why is such a judgement necessary?

This is an online and collaborative spreadsheet tool. Nothing more.

It works for several purposes - but it doesn't need to be better than any other product that works offline-only. It's different. It's for different purposes. This needs only to work, first, and to allow you to share your data with others. And its very nice that it allows you to save spreadsheet-style data online (for the first time ever in a mass-accepted format).

Such tools aren't meant to change lives, and won't, but they will serve the purposes for which you may deem them suitable - or not - period.

[chrisk999]

Absolutely brilliant - this has got enormous potential. Apart from a few minor annoyances and a lack of some Excel complex functionality (which I'm sure will be improved over the coming year), I am very impressed.