LXer: Google Spreadsheets and the usefulness of online applications
 

Published at LXer:

To many commentators, the newly released Limited Test version of Google Spreadsheets is the first move by a major company to challenge Microsoft's domination of the office suite. The functional reality, however, is less dramatic. From a user's perspective, Google Spreadsheets suffers the same limitations as Writely, Ajax13, ThinkFree Online, and half a dozen other online applications. Its lack of printing options and narrow selection of format, sorting, and formula tools makes it such a lightweight application that using it for anything except the simplest of projects is impossible. In fact, now that online applications are no longer a novelty, its main interest is as an illustration of how little developers assume that users actually need in an office application.

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