Google prepping presentation product

Google is apparently working on a Powerpoint killer called Presently to go along with its word processor (formerly known as Writely) and its spreadsheet app. This is according to a post on the Googlesystem blog (via TechCrunch).

This is a surprise to no one. Google has been adding basic productivity applications to its suite of online services relentlessly, and there's no reason to expect the company to stop.

Web-based presentation applicationss are great in concept, for two big reasons: First, presentations are often created (or at least approved) by several people and having a presentation that is inherently collaboration-enabled makes the work flow much easier. Second, when it's show time, being able to just call up a URL on an existing computer might save a lot of hassle, compared with plugging in a laptop or transferring a file via e-mail or a USB drive.

The thing I would really like, though, is for Google to spend some time getting its existing applications to work together. Recently, for example, I needed to convert a table created in Google Docs into a spreadsheet on Google Spreadsheet. I couldn't do it. I had to export the table to Word, import that into Excel, and then upload the Excel file to Google. That worked, but it was a comical work-around. And Google spreadsheets still doesn't have charting capability.

Since many people tweak their presentations at the last possible minute, in coffee shops or on airplanes, Google's presentation app would really benefit from an offline editing mode.

See also Zoho and its developing suite of apps. And ThinkFree. And smaller apps such as Spresent and Thumbstacks.