• CNET News.com, Wednesday, October 11, 2006 11:45 AM

Google has married its Writely and Google Spreadsheets programs to create something that doesn't quite add up to a Microsoft Office, but it has made strides forward, and it's free. The new, publicly available Google Docs and Spreadsheets ("Writely" is now called "Docs") lets you create word documents and spreadsheets from one interface, where you can tag and sort them as you choose.

"It's a big improvement," says CNET blogger Rafe Needleman. One of the cooler features about Docs and Spreadsheets is the ability of groups to edit documents. Collaborators on a spreadsheet can work together and chat in real-time. There's no chat feature for Google Docs, but you can see a list of revisions made by other users--you can't do that with Spreadsheets.

Because the programs were made by different companies (Google made separate acquisitions for these technologies), you can't embed a spreadsheet into a document. In the future, Google plans to integrate Docs and Spreadsheets with its Gmail, its email service. For example, when you receive an attachment with a word processing or spreadsheet file, you'll have the option of opening it in Docs and Spreadsheets. This is a space that's obviously dominated by Microsoft, but Web-based document and spreadsheet programs are the future--tacking on an extra $200 to your laptop or PC for MS Office software will soon be a thing of the past.

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