Google "PowerPoint" Presentations

Okay, those who read my blog know what's coming... have a go at Google! These guys just have no imagination anymore, Google Search was great, Gmail was great, News was a good idea, nothing special, Earth was a toy but now they are ripping everyone else off!

At Web 2.0 Expo Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced that a presentation application would be appearing as the final round of the basic Google Office Suite. He described the idea as "it's casual and sharing" also known as, 'there wasn't anyone already so we couldn't buy them out so we saw that M$ were making money so we'll copy it'!

So far in the Google Office Suite is Google Doc's and Google Spreadsheet, also know as clones of Word & Excel, just Internet based. Google Doc's was brought as a web based program called Writely, however the Spreadsheet was pretty much home built. Google Presentations looks to be a mixture of the two with Google announcing today that they had brought out a company called Tonic Systems who provide Java presentation automation products.

The question still remains why any of this Google Office Suite is useful. So far there has been very little integration between GMail and the current Google Office Suite and why you would want Google to hold even more of this information is confusing enough; Doc's to hold your confidential letters, Spreadsheets to hold your finance and now Presentations to hold your office prep talks?

In addition, assuming your too cheap/don't want to spend money on either M$ Office '07 or Apple Works you still have the good alternative of getting OpenOffice which is a very good basic office suite, much better so far than what Google are offering.

Well we wait and look to see Google Presentations Beta at the end of summer, anyone want to take a guess as to when it will come out of beta? Another question to ask is: how many people actually use these products often? Here is a list of current Google Products:

• Alerts - Used by people who want to be alarmed?
• Blog Search - Specific blog search... who would want that?
• Book Search - Can't even find Harry Potter...
• Catalogs - Searching mail-order catalogues??? Well someone must be that sad
• Checkout - Because PayPal just isn't goo enough
• Desktop - First "useful" one, I know a few people who use this...
• Directory - Tag the internet
• Earth - For Geography teachers to enjoy
• Finance - *yawn*
• Froogle - Useful for compairing product prices, saves time
• Images - I don't need to say anything more
• Local - Google maps...
• Maps - A big map... useful
• News - Top news articales from major (and minor) news sites
• Notebook - Useless ; for making notes, get some paper
• Patent Search - Ultimate enjoyment from Google
• Scholar - Google books for exam papers
• Specialized Searches - Find out about linux
• Toolbar - Can cause major errors in Windows - see previous blog
• Video - Couldn't buy YouTube, made their own, and then brought out YouTube...
• Web Search - BRILLIANT
• Blogger - Brought out from someone else...
• Calendar - Good, but no intergration with GMail
• Docs & Spreadsheets - See above
• Gmail - Good email client
• Groups - Stolen idea from Yahoo!
• Picasa - Brought out from someone else, good program though
• SketchUp - A toy... nothing more
• Talk - Good, but limited take up in the real world
• Translate - Whats wrong with the BabelFish???

You could get me started in the uselessness of Google Labs... however I decided when I started writing this entry not to get annoyed with the USELESSNESS of half of Google Labs, such as Google Sets...