Software-lite

Why is it that Google feels so much lighter (as in leaner, lighter on their feet) than Microsoft?  Currently they give off a glow that suggests that if they wanted to build a new OS or a new web-based spreadsheet, they could do it in a weekend ,whereas it would take three years for Microsoft to do the same thing.  I think part of the reason, is that while Google is releasing new products all of the time, it has yet to try anything truly ambitious outside of their core search product; email, IM, booksearch, imagesearch, froogle, blogsearch, all been done before, or with relatively minor innovations. 

I keep hoping that one day Google will make a robust online collaborative spreadsheet program, but I'm not optimistic that it will come out before I have to buy another copy of MS Office.

Here's Sun Microsystem's Tim Bray reacting to the claim that light web-based applications are clearly superior to traditional software:

Well, yeah, but... authoring software is hard.  I’ve used a lot of different programs over the years, and written some myself, and I’ve never seen software, designed for use by human authors, that has good usability and isn’t a great big honking monster. And usually, they’re not only big, but they take years and years to get working properly.  So I really hope Jon’s right, but I’m not holding my breath.

Comments

[William]

> I keep hoping that one day Google will make a robust online collaborative spreadsheet program

Would you care to elaborate on your "collaborative" needs?

[The Stalwart]

Well, for work, colleagues and I often assemble excel-based spreadsheet/databases and it would be nice to have an extremely simple way for us to share one file instead of having to do various copying and pasting tricks, or buy expensive database software that offers more than we need.