Will Google Docs Pose a Serious Threat to MS Office in 2008?

Updates are like well wrapped candy that you find in the Christmas tree of the person you’re visiting. He / she asks you to get some, but you never know if they’re expired or not or whether you’ll like his / her taste in sweets. It’s something that you must try on your own, if you’re curious on whether you might like it or not.

Like I said, updates are exactly the same, they
might make the world of difference in improving your user experience, or they might come with a feature that will send you plummeting to the darkest depths of the abyss, if the new feature is wrongly implemented or it brings new problems (see the December 17th Google Reader update).

Google Docs is now flexing its tiny muscles in an attempt to look like the Big Bad Wolf that’s going to scare away Microsoft Office from the computers of its users. It’s back (from outer space) with that sad look upon its face that says "MS, you’re going down!" Is that the case? Let’s see what they bring to the table and perhaps after that, a picture will be presented more clearly.

The Google Presentations have been worked most upon, just to kick off the new year in a lucrative manner. Embeddable presentations have been added (see the "Publish" tab for the code), you can now import slides from other presentations (a huge time save if you ask me), you can drag and drop images from other sites to be inserted in the respective presentation, the background is finally changeable, the toolbar looks like it’s Toolbar 1.1, not so rough on the eye as before, and the option to rearrange slides has been made available. Doesn’t sound like much? It is! Is it enough to challenge MS Office? Not yet, but if they keep things up with the updates coming every two months and having the proportions of this one, it won’t be long until they are ready to put on the gloves and be in the same weight category.

I've almost forgot about the other Google Docs updates, like the adding of a feature that allows users to create sub-folders and rename the documents from the homepage of the service mentioned above, without having to open it and save it as… One thing that I’ve noticed is still not there is the option to upload OpenOffice presentations, and this brings me to a question I asked you last year: forcing users to Google-made products only and thus losing them slowly or opening up to other contenders on the market, thus encouraging them and giving them the traffic?

The Conference Table With A Built-In Plasma Display and Lifting System

Flying to a certain location for a conference has become rather unpopular lately, due to higher plane ticket fees, airport taxes and, last but not least, the looming danger of terrorist attacks. This is why more and more people choose remote teleconferencing solutions,
and this is exactly the type of product we'll talk about as follows, namely the D+S Plasma-Lift Conference Table.

According to the company, the D+S Plasma-Lift Conference Table could be a very good platform for small group multimedia presentations. One can use this table as a normal (flat) conference table that will accommodate up to 12 people comfortably. However, at the touch of a button, the 42-inch widescreen plasma monitor can be raised in order to display computer and laptop software, DVD's, video tapes, camcorder footage, etc.

D+S Plasma-Lift Conference Table - stages of raising the plasma panel

Furthermore, built under the table is a large equipment compartment that is ventilated by four fans (two intake, two exhaust). The compartment also includes two surge-protected power blocks and all input jacks to the plasma monitor, which include Component, S-Video, Composite, SVGA/XGA/VGA (video) and Stereo L/R Line Level, Stereo L/R Microphones (audio). Dual hinged doors conceal the equipment and keeps things quiet.

The table is built using heavily braced MDF construction, with all exposed areas being finished with hand-stained and lacquered real oak veneer in a variety of colors. However, one must have quite a lot of space available for installation, since this thing measures around 2.81 meters x 1.3 meters x 73.66 cm, at a weight of 181 kilograms.

However, by far the nastiest info regarding the D+S Plasma-Lift Conference Table is the price tag, as this hi-tech furniture item retails for around 25,000 US dollars, which is quite a hefty sum, even for corporate customers.