Going All in on the Google Cloud

Mike Elgan of InfoWorld wrote an interesting article about what he learned by going all-in on Google Apps, gMail, etc. What's surprising is he decided to stay there.

You can't get the ultimate mobile computing experience by using nothing but Google products, but it's possible and enjoyable to use only Google products. I had a lot of fun with this experiment.

...

'm going all-in on cloud services, and sticking with Drive, Keep, and Docs, as I found them to be better than the alternatives I used previously.

Go here for Mike's full article.

-- Chris Claborne

aka Christian

What's New in Google Apps

Originaly published on 2/1/2011
As promised, this is my what’s new article on Google Apps. Google Docs has been around since 2006 and has been going through a continual cycle of enhance and extend (as I discussed in 2008). 2010 marked a time of furious change in Google Docs, now a part of a suite of tools called Google Apps, and I’ll review some of those here. This rapid release of change is partially enabled because of Google's distribution system, the Internet. This is an advantage of cloud computing (for the most part) over the client software in a box method because there is nothing to install and users don't have to "upgrade". Upgrades are released to everyone at once (mostly). If you receive a feature you don't like though, it could turn into a disadvantage.

Before identifying what’s new, a quick description is in order. In general, Google Apps is a suite of online office productivity tools. Individual users can access most of these tools using a Google Gmail account. The basic tool set covers all the classic office productivity tools similar to those found in Microsoft Office Basic. All access to Google Apps is via the WEB and users’ data lives in the “cloud” on Google servers where it is regularly backed up, and accessible from anywhere, and any device. When people think of operating “in the cloud” this is a prime example.
UPDATE: Look at the end of this article for a update regarding mobile

Google Released “Google Cloud Connect” Today

Today, Google took their MS Office plugin out of BETA and release Google Cloud Connect (GCC), a way to easily share and edit documents real-time with others. The video on their announcement is very compelling.  From their blog:" It adds simultaneous collaboration, revision history, cloud sync, unique URLs and simple sharing to the Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint applications."

Cloud Connect is a very smooth move by Google as a way to demonstrate the power of real-time collaboration without leaving the coveted Microsoft Office Environment.  Check out the announcement. By using GCC, users gain many of the advantages of using Google Docs without leaving MS Office. I'll write more when I have a chance to try it out.