The new Google Docs and Apps: Still second banana to Microsoft Office

Google has beefed up the consumer and business versions of Google Docs and Apps, but it's too little, too late. Microsoft Office still reigns as the premier office suite, and will for the forseeable future.

Google has improved Google Apps and Google Docs in several ways. A new beefed-up version has been introduced, called Drive for Work. In Drive for Work, users get unlimited storage rather than the 30GB per user limit of Google Apps. And users can also save files of up to 5 TB in size. It also offers a variety of IT management tools, including such as improved auditing. There's also an API for it so that third-party developers can add more features. It costs $10 per user per month, twice as much as Apps for Business.

Google Docs is also being improved, including multi-user editing, and merging some capabilities of the QuickOffice office suite into Docs for Android users.

None of this will come close to helping Google unseat Microsoft Office. It's this simple: Office is a superior suite, with much better document-creation and editing tools. It's also starting to catch up to Google Docs when it comes to online collaboration. And as for enterprise tools, Google has nothinhg to rivals Offic3e's Lync Online unified communication tool, or SharePoint.

Google clearly won't stop trying to catch up to Microsoft Office. But it'll remain an also-ran for at least years to come.

Copyright © 2014 IDG Communications, Inc.

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