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EditGrid, Google Spreadsheets Competitor  (View post)

Niraj Sanghvi [PersonRank 10]

Thursday, February 22, 2007
17 years ago5,940 views

To me, Google's biggest advantages (in order) are that it's free, it integrates with other Google Services, and it doesn't require me to setup another account. I also like the ability to discuss changes with other's on shared documents, but it's not a feature I use very often.

While I haven't tried the EditGrid product, the comparison matrix that was provided is not being objective. As an example, it shows that EditGrid integrates with Salesforce.com, but fails to mention that Google Spreadsheets integrates directly into Gmail allowing you to open attachments on the web.

Niraj Sanghvi [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Oh, I forgot to mention in the advantages that along with integrating with Google Services, it's got the Google name on it. That alone is a big plus.

or [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

It always amazes me when people feature the additional features of online office products over that of Google's as if that's a big deal. To think that's a big deal is to not understand the history of Google's product releases and development. They rarely ever release all their features at once, even if some of those features are already there internally. The important thing is to gain traction early before Google – and in this case Google seem to be gaining a healthy traction early on.

P.S. – Don't you think there are more features of Google Apps that Googlers are already using internally. According to this googler, Google Apps is used internally: http://www.ryanpollock.com/truth/
<<<We use Google Apps internally at Google, and it's wonderful having universal calendaring and IM systems. >>>

Dave B [PersonRank 2]

17 years ago #

I played around with EditGrid for a while, and must say that it is a very nice product, nicer than Googles IMO. Hopefully we will see some of these features (like charts) added to Google soon.

As nice as EditGrid is, it isn't quite enough to make me switch.

Colin Colehour [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

One thing that I found annoying is EditGrid says one of the features they have is "Find in Spreadsheet". Google Spreadsheets allows you to use your browsers Search feature and it works great in Firefox 2.0. But EditGrid doesn't allow your browser's built in search to work. You have to specifically hit a button to search. If you try and use the browsers built in search with EditGrid you will notice pretty quickly that nothing is searchable with that.

TonyB [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

No mention of Zoho Sheets here. I have played with it a bit, but keep going back to Google Sheets because of the speed. Zoho does appear to have a nice line of products.

I have never tried EditGrid, but to sound like a typical consumer, what is my incentive to try it if I already can do what I want with Google Docs?

TonyB

Eytan Buchman [PersonRank 10]

17 years ago #

Whatever the competition is, you have to take into account the main strength of Google Spreadsheets – The Brand (eerie blue light). While other calendar sites are just as good as Gcal (a ToDo list?! Unheard of!), I still stick steadfast to Gcal – because its the Google brand. They start miles ahead of the competition just for that reason. Long life the fanboyism.

Ben Crox [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I have been using EditGrid since its beta test. It is good enough that I havent switched back to google spreadsheets so far. A big reason behind is about access time difference in Hong Kong. While Google spreadsheets here is not as mighty as it is being in U.S., EditGrid is considered as a good local rival. I have not heard about Chan, nor TnC, advertise their product, or at least not as loud as Google Spreadsheets does. If their marketing team work harder, they should have knocked down more googler.

I have not yet paid EditGrid. EditGrid have not yet show me any ads. That's fine. Life have been too much googling (/searching) for me, so why not breath outside the Google cage ?

P. K. [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

This is P. K. from the EditGrid Team. Thanks for all your interest and comment, and let me reply all at once.

The general concern expressed here is apparently about integration with the Google brand and other Google services, and lack thereof from EditGrid. This is a shortcoming that we at EditGrid readily acknowledge and accept. What we can do is to build a better product, provide a better service, and allow integration with services that Google doesn't. We are disadvantaged but there are still a lot of rooms to explore. For instance, we have provided integration with Google Maps and Google Calendar for 6 months already – see http://blog.editgrid.com/archives/76 for a brief intro.

[put at-character here]Niraj: EditGrid is a free service to personal users. Thanks for pointing out the missing feature of integration with Gmail on the comparison matrix, I've just added that in. As for the objectiveness of that spreadsheet in general, we do not disguise the fact that that comparison is made by us, so made whatever you will about that. Feel free, however, to start your own comparison chart.

[put at-character here]Colin: I understand your concern. The way we do Find in Spreadsheet in this particular way is because EditGrid supports much larger spreadsheet size than GSS (65,536 x 256 by default), and for optimisation we do not load everything to browser all at once at the beginning. I guess GSS will encounter this problem sooner or later when it starts to support larger spreadsheets.

At your service,

P. K.
The EditGrid Team

angus [PersonRank 0]

17 years ago #

I'm from Hong Kong and very proud of EditGrid's great effort. However I don't think the EditGrid team is on the right track when competing with giant like Google: a standalone spreadsheet app cannot beat Google. Instead of adding less-used features, I think EditGrid should focus on improving the speed, and finding ways to capture the market too small for Google, but big enough for a them. Education and finance sector, or integrating with BSP (I think it is useful for investment-oriented bloggers) may be a better choice.

Google Tutor [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I think standalone apps can have an advantage over the bigger, more integrated ones--and that's when they target a specific niche. When you do this, you tend to be able to focus more on listening to your client base rather than developing a generic solution for the whole world. This is the 37signals model for developing web apps, as I recall--and they're pretty good at it.

As for the brand/trust factor, it can go two ways. One, Google will always be the big company, and people will tend to trust Google because of its stature and its philosophy (or as perceived by the public). But then again smaller service providers can also establish a strong brand if they can build up a good relationship with the niche/target audience they are developing for.

Or, EditGrid can perhaps get acquired by Google!

Googoo Guru [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I have used both Google Spreadsheets and EditGrid extensively, and I think they both have their advantages.

GSS has the brand name behind it, and the integration with its other services and the Google account. It's simple. It works. It gets the job done. If all you need is a simple spreadsheet, GSS is great.

The advantages I have seen with EditGrid are the many additional features it provides. Such things as:

URL access to individual cells in a spreadsheet
Linking data between spreadsheets
Many many more functions available
Revision history
Cell locking
Chat
Web data import (plug anything from the web interactively into a spreadsheet)
XML translation
Permalinks to the spreadsheet in different formats
Many options for locking and sharing spreadsheets
Options to integrate spreadsheets into other websites
Integration with Google Maps and Google Calendar
Charts
and the list goes on....

It's pretty amazing some of the things that you can do with EditGrid when you get down to the details. The combination of a spreadsheet integrated tightly with the web provides some powerful possibilities, most of which GSS hasn't taken advantage of, as of yet.

If Google knew what they were doing, they'd buy EditGrid.

Ken Dakin [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

I speak as a professional of some 40 years standing and developer of one of the worlds first interactive online spreadsheets in 1974.

[It was never made commercially available but served its owners ICI in England for 27 years. It was shareable,had automatic backup/recovery, held a complete history of data values (so trends could be analysed) and prevented illogical operations like multiplying units together (eg pounds by kilograms)]

I have tried Google but find that Editgrid works much better and errors during beta testing were fixed faster. I detected a bug in both Editgrid and Google six months ago. It was fixed by EditGrid team in almost "no time at all" but the very same bug still exists in Google Docs today!

Editgrid are also more inclined to innovate and, as mentioned in above comments, they have lots more features with many more on the way.

By comparison, Google docs seems quite primitive and significantly less robust than EditGrid.

I recently re-tested Google docs to see if I was missing something new – I couldn't even load some of my spreadsheets up to Google to test them but I have had excellent results with Editgrid.

My vote is for Editgrid!

Ken Dakin [PersonRank 1]

17 years ago #

Here is a very useful spreadsheet developed with the "Remote Data update" feature of Editgrid. It is called "Editgrid DYNAMIC CONTACT LIST" and, unlike other contact lists, fetches some important telephone numbers from other contact lists to avoid going out-of-date.

When most of the public utilities and services start publishing their contact information via spreadsheets (soon?), it will be even more useful. For the moment it can be used between friends and business contacts to retain an active and always up-to-date contact list.

http://www.editgrid.com/user/ken/Editgrid_DYNAMIC_CONTACT_LIST

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