Productivity and business

There are a lot of businesses that pay for office suites, but two days before the Google I/O show, Microsoft spotlighted three that picked its Office 365 after trying Google Apps.

Google got a head start with Google Apps, the online service that includes Gmail, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. But Microsoft has a massive customer base using its old-school Office products who are natural candidates for moving to Microsoft's online suite.

Three customers -- Sensia Halsovard, Sepco III, and Arysta LifeScience -- all picked Office 365 "after having deployed or piloted Google Apps," Microsoft touted Monday. … Read more

Expanding its technology for linking e-mail signature information and address books, startup Kwaga announced a new service that lets people turn those signatures into active information.

The Parisian company already offers a service called WriteThat.name that scours e-mails for contact information then copies it into Gmail, Notes, or Outlook address books. That's handy for people receiving e-mail, but now Kwaga added a new service called AddMe that's for people sending e-mail.

To use AddMe, people include a hyperlinked text that says "[+] Add me to your address book" in their signature blocks. When a recipient clicks … Read more

Some competitors would figure if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. But when it comes to Google's strategy for competing with Microsoft's productivity suite, the company is trying to do both in a way.

Last night, Google released Android and iPhone versions of its Quickoffice software for handling Office files. The software, which lets people view and edit Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files, runs natively on various devices the way Office does, not in the cloud the way Google Apps does.

The software, available to customers of the company's Google Apps for Business service, is on … Read more

I'm a cloud-computing, Chrome OS fanboy for the most part. But today was one of of those days I was glad to have old-school Mac and Windows PCs lying around my home office.

I'm no power user, but Google Docs suits me for word processing, while Google Sheets works fine for creating spreadsheets. However, when it comes to importing and editing files from the incumbent power, Microsoft Office, Google just isn't meeting even my low-end needs.

Google handles such documents -- in either the older .doc and .xls formats, and the newer .docx and .xlsx formats -- … Read more

Google could be working on a note-taking application.

Google+ user 1E100 yesterday revealed that a new note-taking application, known as Google Keep, had been discovered in the many places the search company hides products it's working on. 1E100 described a series of places Keep was discovered, including on Google's Products page, in Google Drive, and as part of the search giant's sandbox, where it tries out new products.

According to 1E100, Google might also be working on an Android app, as evidenced by a special URL that points to the application.

During the search, 1E100 was able … Read more

It's no surprise to Google obsessives that the company announced yesterday that it will draw the curtains on its popular RSS-managing Reader service. So what are you supposed to do with your 60 bazillion feeds?

First off, you can export them using Google Takeout. That's an important step to take so you don't lose track of any of the sites you're following. It lets you download your feeds output, called OPML, as a ZIP. Then you extract it all to a folder, and upload them to your prefered Reader replacement service. But which one do you … Read more

Google got a big new ally in its Chrome OS push today: Lenovo, the No. 2 PC maker.

Although Lenovo is a notable ally, it's only really a foot in the door for Google. Lenovo's new ThinkPad X131e Chromebook is only geared for schools. Presumably it could lead to greater things for Google if the device gets a good reception, but this shouldn't be confused with Lenovo pushing a mainstream device the way the two existing Chrome OS partners, Acer and Samsung, have done.

It's not clear whether Lenovo has grander ambitions for Chrome OS, something … Read more

Cloud Sherpas, a startup that helps customers move to Google Apps and Salesforce.com, raised $40 million in second-round funding and acquired a rival, CloudTrigger.

The 350-employee company plans to use the money to fuel further acquisitions and to expand its existing business, a move that it expects will increase 2013 revenue to $100 million.

First-round investors Columbia Capital and Delta-V Capital invested in the second round as well, and new investors Greenspring Associates and Queensland Investment Corporation joined. Cloud Sherpas didn't disclose the company valuation. It's raised $80 million in total so far.

Acquisition is par for the course at Cloud Sherpas. … Read more

PARIS -- Silicon Valley is famed for its role in nurturing startups, but companies there often suffer problems from not looking beyond the insular region to the rest of the world.

So warned Brad Garlinghouse, chief executive of YouSendIt -- one of those companies in Silicon Valley "echo chamber" -- speaking here at the LeWeb conference.

"The hype factor that has impacted Silicon Valley is an unhealthy thing," Garlinghouse said. "Companies focus more on the hype than building a great experience."

Garlinghouse is a high-profile voice in the echo chamber. Perhaps his greatest claim … Read more