Hands-on: Google Cloud Connect for Office not ready for prime time
Google Docs, the online suite of productivity applications, has long offered collaborative, cloud-based sharing and editing of office-type documents. A new add-in for Microsoft Office, Cloud Connect …
Context & Ripple Effects
Cloud Connect is the productization of an approach Google flagged back in its 2006 disclosure of plans for an office suite: rather than asking users to abandon Microsoft Office outright, meet them inside Word, Excel, and PowerPoint and sync their files to Google Docs. The add-in entered limited availability as a tester preview in November 2010 (announced on the Google Enterprise Blog), building on years of positioning Docs around browser-based sharing and editing.
With the plug-in now reaching general hands-on scrutiny, Ars Technica's verdict is that it is not ready for prime time — meaning the bridge strategy, not just one add-in, is being tested against how much friction ordinary Office users will tolerate.
First-order effects
- Early adopters who install Cloud Connect face unreliable syncing and editing behavior, pushing them back toward either plain Office or native Google Docs rather than the hybrid workflow the add-in promises.
Second-order effects
- A rough launch hands Microsoft a ready-made talking point for enterprise customers weighing a move to Google Docs — that Office remains the dependable environment — while pressuring Google to iterate quickly before IT departments pilot the tool.
Third-order effects
- If bridge-style integrations keep launching immature, the cloud-suite market splits along lock-in lines: Google is pushed toward making Docs compelling enough natively instead of relying on Office interop, and the quality of cross-suite connectors becomes a durable competitive variable.
The trend: Cloud productivity suites are trying to colonize the Office installed base through add-in bridges, and adoption hinges less on the idea than on whether those bridges actually work.