On google docs

We see a lot of buzz about google docs everywhere on the web these days. There's even a well-known blogger on zdnet writing that Open Office is Dead, because google docs web applications work so well.

Well I have tried to use google docs very recently, and the results were so bad that I will not go back:

• Compatibility of google docs with Office format is abysmal. It just does not work at all, even for very simple documents. Converting a short and very simple Word document in google docs took ages, and the resulting document lost a lot of markers and tags. Converting back the same document to word did not work at all. The resulting document could even not be opened in the last Word version. End of story. It seems that google docs lives in it's own little world, but it really is not enough for an office suite


• On the other hand, conversion from and to MS Office format work very well in open Office, even for huge and very complex documents. I lately had problems with a huge Word document at work which took ages to work with in Word (even Word 2007). I opened it on Open Office at home, lost nothing (same document), worked on it without problems, and then converted it back to Word. Again I lost nothing and all worked very well


• I don't see the point in needing to have constant internet access to work on a document

Seems that google still has a lot of work to do to have a competing Office suite. But they also seem to work on too many things at the same time.