With Rewrite, Google Docs Takes Microsoft Office Head On: Page 2 of 4

Under The Hood

Google Docs is an online suite that mirrors Office--word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. The main work Google did on Docs is under the hood, a rewrite of the editing engines for the document and spreadsheet, and a new data model tuned to the needs of real-time editing.

Google got its word processing and spreadsheets through the acquisitions of Writely and 2Web Technologies, respectively. From the start, Google's engineers faced the challenge of implementing features that don't come easily in browser-based applications. "Users were asking us for the most simple things like pagination, tab stops, and floating images," says Google product manager Jonathan Rochelle. "We had to say we're still trying two years on. It was because we were constantly fighting the browser."

Improvements in browser speed and new HTML5 capabilities let Google programmers solve some of those problems. But it required a whole new approach at times. The new data model hews to the model-view-controller paradigm, which separates data, logic, and interface for easier manipulation and maintenance. "In order to have collaboration, all collaborators need to agree on a data model," says Micah Lemonik, a Google software engineer. "When we separate model and view, we can do that."

The revision has also involved separating the rendering layer from the data model layer. Google says this allows presentation consistency across browsers, which often render display elements differently. This is critical in convincing users and IT decision makers that online apps and online collaboration can match desktop apps.

That brings us to the whopping user expectation Google won't meet with the new Docs: It won't work offline.

Starting April 12, people can use the rewritten Docs with no offline support, or the old editors, which allow offline use. Access to the old editors and offline use will end sometime in May--Google's promising to give enterprise customers a month's notice. While Google plans to bring back offline functionality using HTML5, rather than Gears, it isn't committed to a delivery date.

Google formed its enterprise group in 2004 and has spent six years trying to convince cautious companies that it's serious about the business IT market. Four years ago, it released its word processing and spreadsheets. By combining its online e-mail with Docs, for one price, it got companies' attention, at the very least as a bargaining chip with Microsoft.

Google played down the competition at first, not only because Office was far more sophisticated, but also because it wanted to cast Docs as something different--focused on online collaboration. Now it's taking the Microsoft rivalry head-on, complete with fightin' words.

"I think all companies will have Office; they just won't have as much of it," says Dave Girouard, president of Google's enterprise group. "Office will become something like Photoshop, something that a few users need. It's not really the right tool for most people."

Google is vague about the size of its enterprise business. It has 25 million Google Apps accounts, but Google won't say how many pay. It claims over 2 million businesses as customers, and the "Other" revenue line on its income statement--everything but advertising, including enterprise licenses--totaled $762 million last year, about 3% of sales.

Big businesses are taking it seriously, especially for e-mail. But they share a big worry: security and compliance.

For the Gmail deal in Los Angeles, which replaced Novell GroupWise e-mail, Google had to address considerable fears that sensitive city data--think cops and prosecutors--wouldn't be secure enough. Google had to encrypt data in transit and storage, keep city data in the United States, and some Google staff had to get the city's security clearance. Yale University in March delayed a planned switch from the Horde Webmail service to Google Apps in order to address community security concerns.

Asked why their companies aren't using Web-based productivity tools, 48% of survey respondents cite incompatibility with corporate governance policies, and 46% cite insufficient security.

Google, not surprisingly, has more faith in cloud computing. "In some ways, regulatory issues are better solved by the cloud paradigm," says Bradley Horowitz, VP of product management. He argues it's easier to do discovery for litigation if the data's all on central servers instead of spread out on PCs.

Microsoft's Office franchise shows no sign of weakening, but Web tools are creeping in. Thirty-nine percent of respondents to our survey never use Web-based productivity tools, 37% use them tactically, and 19% use them strategically but not pervasively. Only 5% like and actively use Web apps as their main productivity tools. But 8% are evaluating new productivity tools or actively planning a change.