If you enjoy subtle jabs between Google and Microsoft, this round goes to Google. Per a company blog post:
“Many of you already use Google Docs for editing your documents, but there are still many people that are tied to desktop applications and haven’t experienced the numerous benefits cloud applications bring.”
Translation: “Some of you hoopleheads still use Microsoft Word, so we built a plugin that lets you save your documents to our servers.”
The free plugin, Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office, goes far beyond simple online file synchronization, though. You’ll also be able to collaborate on Office documents with co-workers, view revision histories, and share documents with others.
The Windows-only plugin works for Word, PowerPoint and Excel files. People you share files with don’t need to have Office to view or edit documents—they’ll open up in Google Docs, if need be.
This is a smart move by Google, as the more time Office users spend playing around with features found in Google Docs, the more likely they may be to switch over to Google Docs full time somewhere down the line.
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