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Tuesday, June 6, 2006

Google Spreadsheet?

What’s still missing in Google’s online OS? They have text editors, email clients, chat programs, calendars and much more... but there’s no Excel yet. That may change this week, according to the WSJ (as quoted by John Battelle):

Google Inc. plans on Tuesday to release a Web-based spreadsheet application, according to people familiar with the matter.

Google Spreadsheet, which will be made available on a limited test basis, follows Google’s March purchase of a company offering a Web-based word processor called Writely.

And this from the AP:

Google also wants more time to smooth out any possible kinks and develop more features, said Jonathan Rochelle, the product manager of the new application.

[Google] planned to begin accepting sign-ups for the spreadsheet at 9 a.m. EDT Tuesday through the “labs” section of its Web site. Rochelle wouldn’t specify how many people will be granted access to the spreadsheet application.

While Google’s spreadsheet app is supposed to be less sophisticated than offline competitor Excel, it puts a focus on easy sharing and group-editing of documents.

I did the first thing that came to mind and entered spreadsheet.google.com. Interestingly enough, that domain exists and redirects to a broken Google account login page for a service codenamed Google “Wise” (with the URL “http://a.svc-1.google.com/ccc?new” appearing in the parameters of the login page).

[Thanks Manoj Nahar and Search-Engines-Web.com.]

Update: Spreadsheet.google.com returns a 404 now, as Haochi notes in the comments. (For reference, this is the full URL I was redirected to earlier after entering spreadsheet.google.com.)

Update 2: Here are the first screenshots & descriptions from the Google Spreadsheets tour, and you can also sign-up for an invitation now. Also, the Spreadsheets help is available now. [Via Dan in the forum, Manoj, and InsideGoogle.]

Create basic spreadsheets from scratch.
You can start from scratch and do all the basics, including changing the number format, sorting by columns, and adding formulas.

Upload your spreadsheet files.
Upload spreadsheets or worksheets from CSV or XLS format – all your formulas and formatting will come across intact.

Familiar desktop feel makes editing a breeze.
Just click the toolbar buttons to bold, underline, change the font, change the cell background color and more. (...)

Choose who can access your spreadsheets.
Just enter the email addresses of the people you want to share a given document, and then send them a message.

Share documents instantly.
People with whom you share a given spreadsheet can access it as soon as they sign in.

Edit with others in real time.
Multiple people can edit or view your spreadsheet at the same time as you – their names will appear in an on-screen chat window.

Update 3: Google Spreadsheets is live now – take a look at the videos and review.

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