Like a lot of people, I had my problems with Google Apps this week. Sure, Google “feels my pain” but they also lost my confidence. And confidence is a delicate thing. What crashed for me was Spreadsheet. That has always been the weakest component for Google and the strongest for Microsoft. Excel rocks, its just a tad behind the times on collaboration.
But in this post we explain how Google could still win the spreadsheet game by buying eXpress Corp.
Let’s look at the context. Google can win in Gmail and Document by getting Gears working. But the Spreadsheet problems go deeper and spreadsheets are mission critical. If you lose confidence its over. Today I got “Updating” in nice red letters, but that was still the same thing 10 minutes later. Then I got “We’re back! Updating” and I thought, “phew”. But still not working. My email (yes, in Gmail) to my collaborator read:
“forget about Google – they are having probs!
So here is good old fashioned xls”
The rule for start-ups – confidence takes a long time to win and a second to lose.
Google could win by buying eXpress Corp. We reviewed the product here. It is a natural bridge product for Google. They can get clients onto a collaborative Excel and then switch them to a mature all Google product when it is really ready for prime time.
Or Microsoft or Yahoo could buy eXpresso. No, I do not have any interest in eXpresso – I wish I did 🙂
Then again, Google could just buy stronger Expresso and give it to their programmers and tell them to work harder and faster 🙂
