"I do [Google Docs applications online] available this summer," said Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome, in an interview last week at the conference Google I / O. "We've all been using internally. Is imminent. We want to ensure that you are good."
It is unclear how high the demand function is. Although I think no Google Docs Online 'a critical weakness, Google cited low interest in the idea as a justification of why it had taken a previous attempt in 2008 technology.
One thing is very different from three years ago, however: Chrome OS, which in June will move from prototype to product with Chromebook models from Acer and Samsung.
With Chrome, Google is betting that the world is ready for an operating system based on the browser. For office workers using a Chrome machine OS to enter customer data into a Web form, online access is no big deal, but for Chromebooks to reach their full potential, must be able to handle a little more than even the lowest-end PC can do. That includes being useful when you're on the subway, a plane, or heaven forbid, in some primitive backwater saturated with 3G is not reliable.
Google says people online Web applications are now possible thanks to the program to a number of interfaces, such as IndexedDB AppCache and get in browsers. But in reality, taking advantage of interfaces is not necessarily easy.
Google Docs is supposed to gain skills online in early 2011, for example.
Docs Offline has not been easy, partly because of years of changes in the pipes so that browsers find data on a local computer instead of a remote server across the Internet.
Initially, Google Docs had some support in incomplete line through a technology called Google Gears. Google withdrew its support when Gears was suspended for Web standards out similar objectives. Gear technology for online storage interface was a SQL database that is closely related to the standard Web SQL database for browsers. However, Mozilla and Microsoft did not like their approach, Web SQL standardization derailed.
A final challenge for Google could be his own vision. The company is betting heavily on a future where the Internet is based on the fabric of our lives. Indeed, with lobbying and investment in network technology, which is trying to hasten the arrival of that future.
Google is perhaps a better idea of what the future looks. Its campus is bathed in Wi-Fi and Ethernet ports dotted. Employees have broadband at home, transit buses connected network, and for those moments in the middle, wireless data modems.
Therefore, there should be no surprise that Pichai said consciously to remember to disconnect from the network if you want to try the online features of Google Docs.
But for those of us who are not in the spirit of Google, with irregular and 3G data cap for your smart phone and broadband at home, online support is essential.