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If you believe ChromeOS is part of their long term strategy, you have to believe this is. Add-ons for sheets can potentially make sheets truly feature complete

by aggronn 13y ago

If you believe ChromeOS is part of their long term strategy, you have to believe this is. Add-ons for sheets can potentially make sheets truly feature complete compared to excel, which is THE biggest argument against ChromeOS/Windows parity by the average user.

brudgers 13y ago
We're nearly five years on with ChromeOS and it's barely a blip in the market. The reason is that latency is deadly and if all that's going on is web browsing and media consumption a slate with touchscreen is more attractive than a clamshell with keyboard. Google's spreadsheet implementation is pretty much like every other alternative to Excel. It implements some fraction of the things which are easy. This makes it good enough and development stalls and people for whom spreadsheets really matter stick with Excel. Microsoft is often accused of missing trends, but spreadsheets are not one of them. Excel is the killer app that drives Windows sales for corporate desktop systems. There's a reason it remains uncontested even by Google. Doing what Microsoft does with Excel is really hard...or at least the hard parts are.
- inthewoods 13y ago
  I'm not completely disagreeing with you - but I'm also not agreeing with you. When I look at the way my company has adopted Google Sheets, I think Microsoft might have more trouble on their hands. While certainly there are hardcore spreadsheet tasks that only Excel can do, I find that most common business tasks that people use spreadsheets for (e.g. present a budget) are more than well supported by Google. Now, this is not to say that this translates to user adoption - I have no idea if they are actually displacing Excel users, but I do think they are aiming for the fat part of the bat.
  - brudgers 13y ago
    I agree that Google's spreadsheet is good enough for most people. My point is that good enough for most people appears to be good enough for Google, and that's why it won't replace Excel in many organizations. The reason Excel is the killer app for corporate sales is that it is attractive to influencers (to borrow the term from social media). There are people on the executive floor who use Excel and often quite well. That's where the decision comes from. They don't want to fool with finagling their subordinates' TCP reports out of Scheme in a Grid, or Libre or Docs to crunch the numbers. The power of Excel to drive top down decisions is why WordPerfect disappeared. Secretaries didn't choose Word. Their boss bought office because she wanted Excel and Word was part of the deal. The fat part of the bat for Google is free as in hog pens and slop troughs. And that's the basis upon which they allocate resources. The development of Docs is so glacial that just about any expansion of the ecosystem is news. Even a whopping 50 developers.

by aggronn 13y ago

brudgers 13y ago

We're nearly five years on with ChromeOS and it's barely a blip in the market. The reason is that latency is deadly and if all that's going on is web browsing and media consumption a slate with touchscreen is more attractive than a clamshell with keyboard. Google's spreadsheet implementation is pretty much like every other alternative to Excel. It implements some fraction of the things which are easy. This makes it good enough and development stalls and people for whom spreadsheets really matter stick with Excel. Microsoft is often accused of missing trends, but spreadsheets are not one of them. Excel is the killer app that drives Windows sales for corporate desktop systems. There's a reason it remains uncontested even by Google. Doing what Microsoft does with Excel is really hard...or at least the hard parts are.

inthewoods 13y ago
I'm not completely disagreeing with you - but I'm also not agreeing with you. When I look at the way my company has adopted Google Sheets, I think Microsoft might have more trouble on their hands. While certainly there are hardcore spreadsheet tasks that only Excel can do, I find that most common business tasks that people use spreadsheets for (e.g. present a budget) are more than well supported by Google. Now, this is not to say that this translates to user adoption - I have no idea if they are actually displacing Excel users, but I do think they are aiming for the fat part of the bat.
- brudgers 13y ago
  I agree that Google's spreadsheet is good enough for most people. My point is that good enough for most people appears to be good enough for Google, and that's why it won't replace Excel in many organizations. The reason Excel is the killer app for corporate sales is that it is attractive to influencers (to borrow the term from social media). There are people on the executive floor who use Excel and often quite well. That's where the decision comes from. They don't want to fool with finagling their subordinates' TCP reports out of Scheme in a Grid, or Libre or Docs to crunch the numbers. The power of Excel to drive top down decisions is why WordPerfect disappeared. Secretaries didn't choose Word. Their boss bought office because she wanted Excel and Word was part of the deal. The fat part of the bat for Google is free as in hog pens and slop troughs. And that's the basis upon which they allocate resources. The development of Docs is so glacial that just about any expansion of the ecosystem is news. Even a whopping 50 developers.