Google Docs Upgrade Throws Down Gauntlet To MS Office

Google is betting that real-time, online collaboration is the feature business people want. The new version of Google Apps allows users to join a collaborative project instantly.

"Intensifying its pursuit of business customers and its competition with Microsoft Office, Google has rewritten its online word processing and spreadsheet applications. The new versions show Google making a few major bets: That what people want most is real-time collaboration on documents, that they'll do it entirely in the cloud, and that, when it comes to features, less is more.

For the past year and a half, Google engineers have been rewriting the browser-based software, taking products the company acquired and turning them into a single online software suite."