SaaS and Cloud computing? Everyone is talking about it. Instead of just talking I have been trusted to test different vendor tools and their different functionalities. Today I want to shed light on a very simple item: Websites, or Webparts.
After working with Microsoft’s Sharepoint 2007 (I am talking about the standard functionalities only) for two years now, I have to admit, it is not the most user friendly tool I have ever used, and in matters of functionality, there is a large room for improvement (in fact I find it rather disappointing). The best example is the text editor
(again talking about the standard, no additional plug ins) which presents challenges every time you want to copy and paste everything, such as changing the fonts and size from your content; another example is, how complicated it can be to create hyperlinks.
At the moment, I find the functionality from Google Apps simply better. The editor is simply easier to use, as well as more reliable.
There are no mistakes when using the above mentioned commands, editing is easier, and the layout is way friendlier. Another success that I find here, is the reaction time for a file to be saved, in other words, I find it faster and much more stable.
The only reason why I am hesitant to state that Google Apps is the “winner” are the wiki and list functionalities which I haven’t fully discovered yet… but as it is, between these two, I would say go Cloud! Go Google!
I want to draw your attention to a certain number of disadvantages, or rather, room for improvements for Google Apps. One of my colleagues and I were discussing the fact that some Google Docs (e.g. text and presentation editors) seem to be quite disappointing, however we also agreed to disagree that they are not entirely disappointing, is just that the Microsoft products are just really what people are used to, and they offer a large number of goodies which just make life easier.
For example, in the Google Apps website editor, if trying to copy and paste some information from one list or table to another, while pasting, the results are simply poor:
On the other hand, if you set a new website as a list, it has the big advantage that you may customize every single field in a very user friendly manner:
And now a little comparison to the less user friendly Sharepoint list editor:
I don’t think is necessary to make a one – one comparison between Microsoft’s Office and Google Apps (talking about functionalities and quality), instead of that I will just highlight the more significant points I have found in one of my favorite tools, the The presentation editor from Google.
Even though it has many features, some of them don’t have the quality I would like to see. For instance, one of these functionalities allows you to import slides:
However, the results could be better, if the slide has a pre-set master layout, then the layout comes out with double images, and it is hard work to have them removed:
My conclusion, is that although Google Apps is rapidly gaining more and more adepts (and prestige) there is a long way to go until they can offer the same type of “pampering” Microsoft offers with Microsoft Office.
Let’s wait and see how the future of cloud computing impacts all these potential improvements.
