Google is now looking to displace Microsoft Excel, the software giant's industry-beating spreadsheet program that is regularly used by nearly every businessperson on the planet. Google Spreadsheets is
(of course) a free Web-based program that allows people to share or work on the same document that will be stored online. It's in beta (of course), and it's not nearly as complete as Excel, according
to the
San Jose Mercury News--and it will only be available to a small number of users who request to participate in the testing period. The program allows users to open Excel documents and
Comma-Separated files. The list of direct shots Google has taken at Microsoft keeps growing: from its software deal with Dell to its slew of unfinished services designed to replace Microsoft Office,
the battle for the desktop has become a Web-based one. Google recently moved into word processing through the acquisition of Upstartle, a small company that developed Writely, a program that lets
people create, share, and store text documents online for free. Microsoft Excel and Word, meanwhile, cost $229 each and $109 for an upgrade. Such "information worker" software accounts for 27 percent
of Microsoft's sales. Just wait until the software giant loses its bundling deals with laptop makers--it would bring hardware prices down, and then people could sign up online for the corresponding
Google product for free.
Read the whole story at San Jose Mercury News »