Google Encroaches on Microsoft Territory

Is Redmond going take this sitting down? Call the anti-trust lawyers!

No formal release date was given for Google's new PowerPoint alternative, called Presently, but Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, indicated Presently would debut soon. According to analyst Rita Knox, the introduction of Presently signifies that Google is "obviously filling out a Web-based suite" that competes in some ways with Microsoft Office.

On Tuesday, Google took another step closer to offering a complete alternative to Microsoft Relevant Products/Services's ubiquitous Office suite of desktop productivity applications. Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and chief executive, announced that the search giant would add presentation software, dubbed Presently, to its emerging lineup of online office software.

"Collaboration is a killer app for how communities work," Schmidt said in his keynote presentation at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. His presentation was made using Presently, the new software designed to enable presentations to be made and shared over the Web.

The software essentially fills out Google's online package of Microsoft Office-like applications. The package of apps, called Docs & Spreadsheet, is free and can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection. The apps enable users to save files locally to their computers or upload them to the Web and work collaboratively with other users.

No formal release date for Presently was given, although Schmidt indicated the software would debut soon. Google already has released a word processor, Writerly; an Excel-like program called Google Spreadsheets; and an e-mail service called Gmail. Separately, the company also offers Google Calendar, Google Talk, and Page Creator.

Schmidt denied the comparison between Google Docs & Spreadsheets and Microsoft Office. "It doesn't have all the functionality, nor will it ever have all the functionality, of products like Microsoft Office," he reportedly said at the conference.

On the same day that Google was presenting Presently, the Google blog was announcing that the company had acquired Tonic Systems, a company based in San Francisco and Melbourne, Australia. Sam Schillace, Google Engineering Director, wrote in a blog that Tonic has "some great technology" for presentation creation and document conversion.

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