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SINGAPORE--In a year, most enterprises will have the choice to "get rid" of Microsoft Office if they so choose, suggests Dave Girouard, president of Google's enterprise division.

Girouard said in an interview here with ZDNet Asia that he expects Google's online suite of applications, Google Docs, to reach a "point of capability" next year that it will serve the "vast majority's needs."

He acknowledged that Docs is currently "much less mature" than Google Mail or Calendar. "We know it. We wouldn't ask people to get rid of … Read more

The Adobe Portable Document Format file format simplifies the conversion from paper to electronic documents and between file and document types across a wide range of programs and platforms, and it's the format of choice for posting documentation online. Businesses and individuals that frequently need to convert documents written in Microsoft's Word into PDFs need a PDF conversion utility. Word-Pdf-Convert's Word/Doc to PDF Converter & Creator makes it easy to create new PDFs and convert Word documents, but it does much more. It will perform conversions on and among any document in any program in Microsoft'… Read more

If you're a regular user of the revision comparison feature in Google Docs, you'll likely enjoy new service Compare My Docs. It comes from the same folks who created TextFlow, the Adobe AIR-based app that spot differences across multiple copies of a Word document or rich text file.

Compare My Docs does many of the same things as TextFlow, including being able to compare up to six versions of the same document to see what's been changed. The big difference though, is that it runs right in your browser and requires no sign-up whatsoever.

Just like TextFlow, … Read more

Although Microsoft introduced Office 2007 with promises of more powerful features, it seems that for the average user--and especially the user who has to share files with other people--the new docx and xlsx formats have been nothing but trouble. DocXConverter is a simple utility that allows users to convert documents created by the 2007 versions of Word and Excel, as well as ClarisWorks documents, into formats that can be read by other programs. With a simple interface and intuitive operation, docXConverter is a commonsense solution to the problem of incompatible files.

The program's interface is simple, consisting merely of … Read more

Your BlackBerry may already have the free version of the Documents To Go viewer and editor loaded onto it. That's fine for casual users, but professionals who annex their smartphones into their virtual office will want the advanced creating and editing features of the premium version (compare features--PDF).

On BlackBerry phones, Documents To Go Premium Edition 2.0 adds four new features. There's a file browser to delete, rename, and copy and paste all the Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Adobe PDF files across the Documents To Go sub-apps. There's also an enriched PDF To Go … Read more

ORLANDO, Fla.--Watch out, business technology managers, because Google has its eyes on your domain.

If Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt gets his way, the line that separates the computing services used by businesses from those used by consumers will fade fast. And Google, through services such as Google Apps and the new Google Wave, hopes to accelerate the change.

The company has done well so far with services that appeal chiefly to consumers, but Schmidt said at the Gartner Symposium here that Google likes services that become part people's lives regardless of whether they are doing work. And because the company covers its costs by charging enterprise accounts $50 per person per year for those services at work, he said it's just a matter of attaining scale before the business becomes "very profitable" for Google.

I spoke to Schmidt after a Gartner Symposium talk in which he said the enterprise market is Google's next billion-dollar revenue opportunity. Here's an edited transcript of the interview. … Read more

Google claims more than 2 million businesses and 20 million people have switched to Google Apps, a movement the company is touting through its expanding "Gone Google" marketing program.

Google's official blog on Monday put in a plug for the ongoing flow of companies that have adopted its services, including not just Google Apps, but also the Postini spam filtering and Google's Enterprise Search Appliance.

In August, Google asked customers to tweet the benefits of using its online apps and services, and now the company has gathered together those tweets in its GoogleAtWork Twitter page.

Through … Read more

Google Docs has long let users share documents between one another, but folders--a feature Google begrudgingly added to Docs back in mid-2007, have largely been left out of the picture.

That changed on Monday, as users are now able to share entire folders of documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with other people.

The benefit here is that the permissions settings for a shared folder controls the individual file permissions of all the documents inside of it, meaning that you don't have to go through and change each document's viewing permissions one at a time. It's also an easy … Read more

CyberArticle is a powerful program that allows users to organize vast qualities of online information. Much more than a bookmarking application, CyberArticle would be useful to the average Internet user and indispensable to those doing serious online research.

CyberArticle organizes information in a familiar tree structure. Users create "books" on certain topics, which contain documents relating to the topic. Think of it a little bit like an electronic scrapbook. Did you find a relevant Web page? Save it in its entirety. Just need a portion of it? Highlight the part you want, and the program will save that, … Read more