Peter Sbarski18 April 2007, 3:39 AM
Google has announced that a new member will soon join its Google Docs and Spreadsheets family. We've been waiting for it for a long time. Prepare to welcome Google Presentations.
First came Gmail, then Google Docs and Spreadsheets, now Google is adding Presentations (a PowerPoint like program with extra features) to its rapidly growing mix of online applications.
According to a blog post made by Sam Schillace, Google's Engineering Director, "it just made sense to add presentations to the mix; after all, when you create slides, you're almost always going to share them. Now students, writers, teachers, organizers, and, well, just about everyone who uses a computer can look forward to having real-time, web-based collaboration across even more common business document formats."
To get Presentations up and running Google acquired Tonic Systems which call themselves "Java PowerPoint Specialists".
Sam writes that, "they have some great technology for presentation creation and document conversion, and it will be a great addition as we add presentation sharing and collaboration capabilities to Google Docs & Spreadsheets.".
Tonic Systems is based in Melbourne, Australia and San Francisco. Their website states that they have been bought by Google and answers a few common questions such as, "How much did Google pay?" and "What are the terms of the acquisitions? Has it closed yet?".
The answer to both questions is an informative "The terms of the acquisition are confidential and the deal is officially closed".
Another question asks, "What are you going to be doing at Google?". The answer is, "We can't share anything publicly..." but we can take a good guess here.
Sam Schillace writes that Google Presentations will go live this summer (or winter if you live in OZ-land). Google Presentations will compete against ThinkFree Show, Zoho Show, and online presentation software.
Sam's blog entry is given in full below or you can read it here.
Well, we tried to keep it a secret as long as we could, but to be honest, we've been dying to tell you about the bun we've got in the oven. We'll soon be welcoming a new addition to the Google Docs & Spreadsheets family: presentations.
First of all, we want to welcome the team from Tonic Systems to Google. Tonic, which we've just acquired, is based in San Francisco and Melbourne, Australia. They have some great technology for presentation creation and document conversion, and it will be a great addition as we add presentation sharing and collaboration capabilities to Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
We've already freed those of you working in teams from the burdens of version control and email attachment overload when going back and forth on word processing and spreadsheets. It just made sense to add presentations to the mix; after all, when you create slides, you're almost always going to share them. Now students, writers, teachers, organizers, and, well, just about everyone who uses a computer can look forward to having real-time, web-based collaboration across even more common business document formats.
Our due date is this summer. We promise to share family photos just as soon as we can.