Google Spreadsheets

Google just released a web-based spreadsheet application. When that happens, I blog about it.

This time, I'm not so hot on what Google has done. I mean, it is a great web application, but there are several (two come to mind) really great local PC based spreadsheets.

Users can drop their current email clients and calendar applications and move to Google's respective apps. I don't think that is the case with spreadsheet. Sure, its in beta, but it just doesn't do it for me.

One of the nice things that it offers is online collaboration. That's a nice feature, but the people you are collaborating with have to have Google Accounts. Now, I can't imagine why anybody wouldn't have a Google Account (unless they are an employee of a rival IT company), but there are still those that don't.

You can't make charts with Google Spreadsheet. Yet.

And for hardcore spreadsheet users, they are already well versed in the in's and out's of their spreadsheets already. I couldn't figure out how to calculate an interest payment.

My recommendation stick with Excel or OpenOffice. This is a nice tool to play with, maybe make quick and simple spreadsheets. It isn't an Excel killer, but it is one more app in the productivity suite...