While Google can launch online spreadsheet and word processing applications, Microsoft can't respond without damaging its powerful Office software business.
Net versions of its word-processing and spreadsheet applications to run on the Web as services that people buy through subscriptions.
The two 50-minute online test sessions assessed "the old spreadsheet, word-processing and presentation applications which I was teaching 15 years ago, plus a bit of e-mail".
BBC: NEWS | UK | Education | School test 'should be optional'
Google has rolled out word processing, calendar and spreadsheet applications that aren't installed in PCs but are accessed through the Internet.
When it comes to moving productivity suites to the cloud, which include word processing, spreadsheet and calendar applications, adoption is slow among SMBs.
It is certainly powerful enough to run office suite applications such as word processing, spreadsheets and presentations, e-mail, instant messaging, Internet access for surfing and blogging, playing a few tunes and watching a DVD in flight (the battery will get you across America, if not an ocean).
The most ideal applications for a notebook computer are light word processing and communications.
FORBES: Connecting marketers to the Forbes audience. What is this?
Technological changes such as the rise of collaboration tools make it easier to multi-task: you can have a chat window, a word-processing document, a Web browser, and other applications all open at the same time on your computer, and switch easily between them.
Applications digitized existing real-world processes, such as word-processing, payroll and inventory.
Google has scooped up more than 50 tiny software firms that have created various online applications: calendars, social networks, maps, blogs, photo sharing and word processing.
And Zoho is already pushing into more sophisticated applications, offering customer-management and project-planning software alongside basics such as word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software.
应用推荐