Google Bundles Word Processor, Spreadsheet

It didn't take a genius to figure out months ago that Google would soon enough bundle its Writely word processor and Google Spreadsheets into a more complete apps suite.

This leads to an interesting rhetorical question: Since bundling has traditionally been a pricing move, what does it mean when a company bundles free offerings. Let's ponder that awhile.

Anyway, Google has now done the deed.

The company has apparently taken on the big Office clone bugaboo—file format compatibility—up front. The new Google Docs and Spreadsheets will accept most of the majorformats including .doc, .xls, .odf, .ods, .rtf, etc. according to the post.

This conglomeration of freebie functionality—features that most people now get in Microsoft Office-- has huge ramifications not just on Microsoft but on the army of solution providers who implement Microsoft (and other) software.

Take John Doe for example. (I do not have permission to use his name.) He's a small business owner who was evaluating a Linux-based e-mail system for his company. Before signing on the dotted line, however, Google contacted him about testing its as-of-then-unannounced Google Apps For Your Business collaboration suite.

He found the collaboration and mail functionality was sufficient for his needs and the VAR that was going to implement and support the Linux mail system lost the deal.

"From my point of view, Google has a tremendously well-designed solution for hosting a small business e-mail and integrating it with the calendar. There are missing pieces—like a shareable address book and a wiki," he conceded., but overall he's able to live with that.

But there was one bigger caveat: If there is a question or problem there really is no one to call.

"Google is impenetrable if you have problems. Luckily and I guess it's scary in theory, if Google goes down, it's as reliable as any other hosting provider," he said

Apps for Your Domain is free for up to 25 users, then charges kick in.