Was the world clamoring for an on-line spread sheet? What need does this serve that one can't get from an office suite? It's free? OK, so is this, and you don't have to worry about net lag, and storing your data on Google's server. Not to mention that it's as powerful as Excel, with (at least somewhat) file compatibility. Why do they think this was a good idea?

it has all the merits of "application as a service"
this means less administration costs, uniform user experience, better collaboration capabilities and some other stuff.

its not for everyone and especially individuals, its more aimed at offices with hundreds of people where people dont WANT to know how to install something or keep macro viruses away, maintain their PCs and document servers etc, they just want to get THEIR job done.

I haven't had a chance to use it yet but the point of things like Writely and eventually this application is real time collaboration with multiple parties within the same document and, through the use of the API, incorporation of this app into other on1ine apps (i.e. a mashup).

Imagine 15 people actively editing the same spreadsheet where data is integrated directly from web services based data services like Forrester, NASDAQ, or a model running on an NCSA supercomputer.

We recently began refusing to save our Excel spreadsheets as an earlier version for some other offices in our company to pressure them to upgrade. This is a downside of the high degree of decentralization that is otherwise one of our strengths.

Yes, we could all switch to OpenOffice, which is what I use at home, but it would still mean keeping up with versions which could be nuisance for some of our smaller locations.

A nice thing about using the their approach would be that upgrades pretty much just happen for everybody at the same time.

I think part of the idea is to enable one of those browser-based IT utopias where your machine only has to run the browser, and thus can be light and stable. I actually do a lot of browsing and e-mail on my Treo, which fits into my purse and keeps me connected to stuff without a lot of ball-and-chain. Browser-based applications like this one makes it easier for me to avoid a laptop altogether.

Of course, I don't use a spreadsheet much. If they had image manipulation on the web, though, I would be interested. I actually invested a little bit in a company that was working on that, but they tanked.

Was the world clamoring for an on-line spread sheet?

In small offices, ignorant undertrained staff regrettably share most spreadsheets (and small files of all types sadly) by email. This makes version tracking next to impossible.

On-line storage conveniently solves this problem. Expect an office live plugin to do same, but in a much more elegant way to gooogle's implementation.

This zpam filter is moronic. Blocks unhyphenated on-line and two o'ed gooogle.

Can't you use a once per session capatcha and a cookie like the rest of the civilised world?