

Microsoft Previews Google Apps Killer To Beta Testers - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/17/imitation-isnt-always-flattery-microsoft-previews-google-apps-killer-to-beta-testers/

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endtime
I worked on the team developing the Word and OneNote web apps this summer.
Just finished on Friday. I'm happy to try and answer any questions.

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smhinsey
What would you say is the correspondence between OneNote desktop and web? If
it is as flexible on the web as the desktop, I would be very impressed (and
happy, it's a great app but it never made a lot of sense for me since I use a
lot of different machines).

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endtime
I worked on the Word App (specifically, the viewing side of things rather than
the editing side) so I didn't use the OneNote app that much. But I did play
with it a little, and from what I saw it has the same core functionality as
the rich client. Not sure about the fancier stuff like Outlook task
integration. But it's certainly the case that you'll be able to create
notebooks, sections, and pages, and take notes as you normally would.

Sorry that's not a great answer - I'd never used OneNote before this summer
and I still don't know all the features even in the rich client, so it's hard
for me to say if the web app is equally "flexible".

> it's a great app but it never made a lot of sense for me since I use a lot
> of different machines).

Isn't there a way, even in Office 2007, to share a notebook across multiple
machines? I haven't used it but when you create a new notebook you have to
pick either "I will use it on this computer", "I will use it on multiple
computers", or "Multiple people will share this notebook". I imagine that
might fill your current need.

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smhinsey
Thanks.

What you describe sounds promising since I am mostly concerned about retaining
the "click anywhere and start typing" nature of the app rather than the tight
integration with the rest of Office.

There are a couple of different methods for sharing such as sharepoint and
shared drives. I am giving it a shot with Dropbox at my new gig to see how it
works out. I would like to be able to treat it like I do my Moleskine - always
there, always up to date.

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rimantas
Did ever something named "X killer" actually kill X?

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anigbrowl
Yes, 'competitor' would have been just fine as 'killer' depends on performance
and a bunch of other unknowns.

But anyway, good on MS, I'm glad to see what competition will bring and I do
quite like office so I'll give it a whirl, as well as seeing how Google
responds.

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joshu
I like how much of the screen is lost due to horizontal crap up the top. The
fake title bar, etc.

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Elepsis
You can pop the web app out of the SkyDrive interface, and the ribbon is
minimize-able just like in Office.

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bdr
Google Apps appear to have been stagnant while MS worked on this. Is that
really the case, or does Google too have something up their sleeve?

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fizx
Who really knows, but Google loves to spoil other people's releases (c.f.
Wolfram Alpha vs. Google Squared).

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dtap
I am anxious to see how much of the functionality remains. The business world
loves Office, specifically Excel. If they can maintain some of the more
intense features of Excel (Macros, Pivot Tables, etc.) then they me be on to
something that high paying enterprises would want.

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secret
I've yet to use a web or desktop app that comes close to Excel. Zoho may be
the closest, but Excel is the gold standard.

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condor
I found it curious that there's an ad unit on the onenote product page
<http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/default.aspx> .

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inovica
"Imitation isn't always flattery" Surely Google imitated in the first place

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teamonkey
Google "bought", didn't they?

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tvon
Yup, imitating Microsoft from the beginning ;)

