Google Brings Offline Access to Docs and Apps

Google is rolling out a much-awaited feature for its hosted applications: the ability for people to use them even when they aren't connected to the Internet.

Google is rolling out a much-awaited feature for its hosted applications: the ability for people to use them even when they aren't connected to the Internet.

The first application to get this offline access will be the word processor, said Ken Norton, Google Docs product manager. "The design goal is to create a seamless experience, with or without an Internet connection," he said.

Over the next three weeks or so, Google will turn on the feature for all word processor users, giving them the ability to view and edit documents while offline. During the same time period, Google Docs' spreadsheet will gain offline ability for viewing, but not editing, documents.

Google Docs' third component, an application to make slide presentations, will remain for now without offline access. However, Google has plans to extend the offline access to it and to other hosted services in the Google Apps suite, of which Docs is part. Apps also includes Gmail, Calendar, Talk and others.

"Offline access of [hosted] apps is the next step in making the Web as a whole a lot more reliable," Norton said.

Solving Objections to Web-Based Apps

Expectation for offline access in Docs and Apps had been building since Google introduced its Gears open-source technology in May of last year. Until now, Google had only built Gears offline functionality for its Reader RSS feed manager.

By allowing Docs and Apps users to work offline, Google is addressing one of the biggest objections to Web-hosted applications. So far, offline access has required that users export their Docs files to third-party file formats, like Microsoft Office.

Google Docs, a free software suite available to anyone with a Google account, is aimed primarily at consumers, while Google Apps, designed mainly for workplace use, has been adopted mostly by small organizations.

However, Google has lofty aspirations that Apps -- with Docs in tow -- will extend its reach into medium-size and large companies, and to that end has been boosting its security and administration features, particularly in its fee-based Premier version.

Offline access to documents is "one of the big things they need to be competitive in the enterprise. It's a critical step in gaining that appeal," said Rebecca Wettemann, a Nucleus Research analyst.

As Google extends offline access to more of its applications and services, it should help organizations understand how this capability can be useful in the real world, Wettemann said. It's important that the introduction of offline access doesn't remain in the realm of a cool novelty, she said.

"Google should take the opportunity to talk about what are the best practices and use cases in which this approach makes sense and delivers greater value than traditional desktop applications," Wettemann said.

A Conceptual Shift

With Docs and Apps, Google is pushing a conceptual shift in productivity and collaboration software that so far has been at odds with Microsoft's. Google's view is that software should be hosted by the vendor in order to reduce the customers' cost and the complexity of installing and maintaining it.

Google and other hosted-software proponents also point out that their applications make it easier for users to share documents and collaborate on them, because the files are hosted on a central server and not locked in users' PCs.

Microsoft has been criticized for being slow to adapt its software for this Web-hosted model. However, the company lately has been taking steps to recover lost ground with an approach that tries to mix the best of both worlds, with enhancements to Office Live Workspace, which is still in beta, or test, mode. Along the way, Microsoft wants to make sure it retains the dominance it has had in the office productivity market with its ubiquitous Office suite.

Gears is a browser plug-in that can store files and data locally, as well as run JavaScript applications without a server connection. It's this architecture that will allow Docs users to work on their word processing documents if their Internet connection drops or if they're somewhere without one, such as an airplane.

To access their Docs files offline, users need only install the Gears plug-in and type in the regular Google Docs URL: docs.google.com.

Work done offline will be automatically synchronized with the Google Docs servers when users connect to the Internet.

As an open-source technology, Gears can be used by developers outside of Google.

The offline access will be turned on "in batches" over the coming weeks in consumer Docs accounts and in the administrator consoles of Apps.

Gears is currently supported in Internet Explorer 6 and above and Firefox 1.5 and above for Windows XP and Vista, according to Google. Firefox 1.5 and above is also supported on Mac OS X 10.2 and above and Linux. Gears also runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile 5 and above in Internet Explorer 4.01 and above.

Google isn't the only provider of productivity and collaboration software to provide offline access for its applications. Players in this market like Zoho and Yahoo's Zimbra also have offline capabilities in their suites.

Google Turns Quoted Search Into Unquoted One If Nothing’s Found

This seems to be (at least relatively) new: now, when you do a quote search that doesn’t yield any results, Google will search for your words without the quotes. This will turn the phrase search into a search where the keywords can appear on the page in any order – including word stemming where appropriate – so that there’s more of a chance to find something. E.g. if you search for ["foo bar"] and there’s no results, Google will look for [foo bar]. In general, Google’s search syntax became more fuzzy over the years, and this is another step in the direction.

When I stumbled upon this earlier the feature was immediately useful, because I had mistyped a word in my phrase search, and Google still found the page I was looking for. I guess the only downside could be that you glance over the results so fast that you’d miss the fact Google turned phrase search into normal search (and normal keyword search may not always be what you want). But the warning that they changed the query for you is not easy to miss, so I guess this won’t be an issue. Scripts screenscraping Google results, though, may need to be adjusted now to look for an occurrence of the “Results for ... without quotes” bit.

Google has lots to do with intelligence

When the nation's intelligence agencies wanted a computer network to better share information about everything from al Qaeda to North Korea, they turned to a big name in the technology industry to supply some of the equipment: Google Inc.

The Mountain View company sold the agencies servers for searching documents, marking a small victory for the company and its little-known effort to do business with the government.

"We are a very small group, and even a lot of people in the federal government don't know that we exist," said Mike Bradshaw, who leads Google's federal government sales team and its 18 employees.

The strategy is part of a broader plan at Google to expand beyond its consumer roots. Federal, state and local agencies, along with corporations and schools, are increasingly seen by the company as lucrative sources of extra revenue.

In addition to the intelligence agencies, Google's government customers include the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the state of Alabama and Washington, D.C.

Many of the contracts are for search appliances - servers for storing and searching internal documents. Agencies can use the devices to create their own mini-Googles on intranets made up entirely of government data.

Additionally, Google has had success licensing a souped-up version of its aerial mapping service, Google Earth. Agencies can use it to plot scientific data and chart the U.S. coastline, for example, giving ships another tool to navigate safely.

Spy agencies are using Google equipment as the backbone of Intellipedia, a network aimed at helping agents share intelligence. Rather than hoarding information, spies and analysts are being encouraged to post what they learn on a secure online forum where colleagues can read it and add comments.

"Each analyst, for lack of a better term, has a shoe box with their knowledge," said Sean Dennehy, chief of Intellipedia development for the CIA. "They maintained it in a shared drive or a Word document, but we're encouraging them to move those platforms so that everyone can benefit."

Like Wikipedia

The system is modeled after Wikipedia, the public online, group-edited encyclopedia. However, the cloak-and-dagger version is maintained by the director of national intelligence and is accessible only to the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and an alphabet soup of other intelligence agencies and offices.

Agents can log in, depending on their clearance, to Intellipedia's three tiers of service: top secret, secret and sensitive but unclassified. So far, 37,000 users have established accounts on the network, which contain 35,000 articles encompassing 200,000 pages, according to Dennehy.

Google supplies the computer servers that support the network, as well as the search software that allows users to sift through messages and data.

Dennehy declined to asses the quality of Google's products, but he applauded the contribution that Intellipedia can make to the government's work. Whether the network actually leads to better intelligence will largely depend on agents sharing some of their most important files and then their colleagues chiming in with incisive commentary - issues that are out of Google's hands.

Normally, Google ranks results on its consumer site by using the number of links to a Web page as a barometer of its importance. Doing so on Intellipedia isn't as effective because the service lies behind a firewall and is used by a limited number of people.

Instead, material gets more prominent placement if it is tagged, or appended by the network's users, with descriptive keywords.

Because of the complexities of doing business with the government, Google uses resellers to process orders on its behalf. Google takes care of the sales, marketing and management of the accounts.

Conspiracy theories

Google is one of many technology vendors vying for government contracts.

A single deal can be sizable, such as the one Google made with the National Security Agency, which paid more than $2 million for four search appliances plus a support agreement, according to a contract obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

However, the amount is insignificant when measured against Google's overall revenue of $16.6 billion last year, virtually all of which came from online advertising.

On occasion, Google is the target of conspiracy theories from bloggers who say it is working with spy agencies more closely than simply selling search equipment.

The buzz got so loud two years ago that Matt Cutts, who leads Google's fight against spam Web sites, responded by ridiculing the idea in his personal blog.

Google's Bradshaw emphasized that the company sells virtually the same products to companies as it does to government agencies. Google can make minor tweaks to comply with government rules about equipment security, for example, while major customization is handled by others.

"There were some wild accusations," Bradshaw said. "But everything we do with the government is the same as what we do with our corporate customers."

EUROPE APPROVE GOOGEL's WITH DOUBLE CLICK

BRUSSELS — European regulators on Tuesday approved Google’s $3.1 billion takeover of the online advertising company DoubleClick, the final hurdle to a deal that would strengthen Google’s already powerful position on the Web.

The European Commission, the executive arm of European Union, said that its investigation, opened in November had concluded “that the transaction would be unlikely to have harmful effects on consumers, either in ad serving or in intermediation in online advertising markets.”

The merger had been opposed by rivals like Yahoo and Microsoft, which had voiced concern about Google’s advertising clout, as well as by consumer groups, which feared that the combined company would have access to a large amount of data on individual Web-surfing habits.

Tuesday’s approval follows that of competition authorities in the United States.

“We are thrilled that our acquisition of DoubleClick has closed,” Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said in a statement.

The deal with DoubleClick, Mr. Schmidt said, “will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies, while improving the relevance of advertising for users.”

Shares of Google rose $13.68, to $427.30 in New York mid-afternoon trading Tuesday.

The commission said Google and DoubleClick “were not exerting major competitive constraints on each other’s activities and could, therefore, not be considered as competitors,” and even if DoubleClick could become an effective rival in online intermediation services, “it is likely that other competitors would continue to exert sufficient competitive pressure after the merger.”

Microsoft and ATT had asked regulators to block the deal, arguing that a merged Google-DoubleClick would have too much power to set advertising rates.

The commission uses different, and slightly broader, criteria to assess mergers than the Federal Trade Commission, which approved the DoubleClick deal in December. However, there was never much expectation that the top European regulator, Neelie Kroes, would block the deal.

Ms. Kroes has shown a willingness to take on large companies — including, notably, Microsoft — but has been reluctant to intervene in mergers. Since she came into office in 2004, Ms. Kroes has blocked two mergers: a Portuguese power utility deal and the proposed takeover of the Aer Lingus by the budget carrier Ryanair.

Her predecessor, Mario Monti, suffered several setbacks when the courts overturned his efforts to block mergers. As a consequence, Ms. Kroes has concentrated on cartel-busting and on seeking to prevent companies like Microsoft from abusing their dominant market position.

Last month, the commission fined Microsoft 899 million euros, or $1.3 billion, for failing to comply with a 2004 judgment that the company had abused its market dominance. The fine was the largest ever imposed on an individual company. Microsoft’s battle with the commission has cost it 1.68 billion euros in fines.