Google Apps Premier Edition
Cloud computing is the buzz word of the moment and Google is still the internet’s star child. But is Google Apps really good enough for serious business use? We delve deeper.
Steve Ballmer has poured scorn on Google apps, and after close examination we think he might have a point. The potential is there, but we’re not convinced that Google Apps Premier is feature complete or resilient enough for major corporates to consider.
The spreadsheet module is fine for simple calculations but don't expect a speedy response with a sheet of any meaningful size. There's also quite a lot of flickering as sheets are saved or recalculated. Even a small spreadsheet takes a couple of seconds to turn a simple formula you typed into a result. Charts are rudimentary, and only in garish, primary colours, and there are virtually no tools for editing charts short of changing the title or redrawing a column chart as a line chart. If you want to publish a chart, Google gives you a snippet of HTML to copy and "paste into any HTML page" - not very helpful, unless you're adept at editing raw HTML.
For presentations, Google Apps are barely adequate. There are 15 themes, all of which look tired and dated. With just six fonts to choose from and little control over the layout of the standard blocks, slides could quickly become boring and "samey". Inserting images means browsing to upload the image from your PC, or typing a URL to copy an image from the web, and then waiting to upload it to Google's servers before it appears in your presentation. Dragging a corner of the image to resize it then changes the aspect ratio, unexpectedly squashing or stretching the image. (You have to hold the Shift key to resize retaining the correct proportions.)
You can choose for bullet points to appear one at a time but there are no facilities for setting delays or saying how words, shapes or pictures appear. Importing a fairly simple Microsoft PowerPoint presentation mangled the bullets, lost all the transitions, animations and speakers notes and let the text run off the bottom of virtually every slide. It was unusable without spending far too much time editing it to fit.
The user interface for all the applications is starkly functional. There are a couple of menus and a row of toolbar buttons. Nothing fancy but quite sensibly arranged. You've not got many places to look to find the function you are after, or to find that it doesn't exist. It can however be confusing that the same command can be called two different thing on different menus; for example, "Change Row..." and "Modify Row Properties...".
Importing and exporting
Support for importing from and exporting to other packages is basic. Microsoft Office 97-2003 format (doc, xls and ppt) is catered for as are OpenOffice ODF files but Microsoft Office 2007's OOXML (docx, xlsx and pptx) aren't supported, nor are the translations particularly accurate. There are far too many features missing from Google Docs to make a good translation of even a moderately complex document. If all you deal in is plain text with simple formatting (bold, italic) and simple headings you can probably import and export documents successfully.
Get the ITPro daily newsletter
Sign up today and you will receive a free copy of our Future Focus 2025 report - the leading guidance on AI, cybersecurity and other IT challenges as per 700+ senior executives
-
First Microsoft, now AWS: Why tech giants are hitting the breaks on costly data center plans
News Amazon Web Services (AWS) has paused plans for some data center leases, according to analysts, sparking further concerns about the cost of AI infrastructure spending plans.
By Nicole Kobie Published
-
Edge devices are now your weakest link: VPNs, firewalls, and routers were the leading source of initial compromise in 30% of incidents last year – here’s why
News Compromised network edge devices have rapidly emerged as one of the biggest attack points for small and medium businesses.
By Bobby Hellard Published
-
Colt Technology sells eight European data centers
News NorthC says the acquisition will help it improve coverage in Germany and other markets
By Emma Woollacott Published