Google Docs and Spreadsheets is a great collaboration tool. I can see it making a huge impact. However, I see this impact being for more simple collaboration needs. Students will probably use it more than any other group. It seems great for sending homework to yourself, working on assignments on various computers (in a library, computer lab, or other public computer labs common to academic campuses), and even for small companies with very simple collaboration needs.

I do not, however, see this solution being implemented for large-scale collaboration. It lacks high-level database structuring, key reporting features, certain access control privilege settings, advanced search and are necessary for it to become a complete enterprise business solution. Nevertheless, I can only think of one application that has all these features; it could be called “Google Docs and Spreadsheets on steroids.� This web-based software, Interneer Intellect, would probably be more appropriate for mid-to-large sized organizations looking for a web-based collaboration solution. However, Intellect lacks the ability to create spreadsheets online. It does integrate with MS Excel, Access and Project to make up for that.

About Google Boxes/Appliances, what we see is people moving servers and IT infrastructure from their company to data centers… and Google is good at data center, they have really good sysadmins and automated upgrade system. We can really notice that with new Google offer: Corporative GMail. You can have your domain mail delivered and handled by Google, with private GMail and GTalk. This is still in beta, but I already see some momentum in this field…

About new Office applications (Spread Sheet and Text/Word Processor), most companies use these for simple things, most of them is internal documents that should be filled and delivered to some other mate. This could fit really well Google’s approach, instead of .xls and .doc among mailboxes, just links to shared documents, with version/revision control enabled. Also, as everything is HTML and links, you can easly embed them everywhere… no need for COM or KParts or complex inter-process stuff.

Last, but not least, I think we will see an application to create simple forms and databases, something like Microsoft Access, but easier to use… I wonder something like Google Page, with Data Base support. As I said, most companies use Spread Sheets and Text Processors to document internal requests and processes… because writing Excel spread sheets are much easier than Access applications… but if Google can make something as easy, then people will use the correct tool for the job.

Google Office is going to attact some companies as the ultimate outsourcing but they are going to want some security that it’s not going to disapear and so will pay for support and perhaps mangement a management interface.

As for the thin client solution I think this is what the summer of code is all about. But not for Google Desktop but to try and level the playing field for alternative solutions to Microsoft on the desktop. I don’t think they are going to start selling Desktops any time soon but they just want enought alternatives out there that Microsoft can’t afford to lock them out.

Kevin talks a bit more about the notion of a Google Office Box (GOB) which was first brought up by Mark Lubischer in the comments of the last post (I first heard it there, I’m sure Kevin came up with it on his own).
I think this idea has more p…