So far Google Docs, the free online documents and spreadsheet service from Google does not even come close to Microsoft Office. Granted you can do most of the stuff on Google Docs that you can do on Microsoft Office. Unless you are a power user and really want to extract most out of the applications especially the spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are the life lines on which organizations run and so far the spreadsheet application does not offer the full range of functionality to the power users.

Google Docs, the free online documents and spreadsheet service from Google does not even come close to Microsoft Office.  The service is still in Beta so we have not seen the end of it and I am sure before the product is released in it's final version, it will be much more polished and functional. But I just wished that Google be a little more receptive of the users' needs.

I created a spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel 2003 with a lot of formulae, data validation using drop down boxes, conditional formatting and then uploaded it on Google Docs to share with my wife. To my dismay, all the cool features that I had incorporated were lost. No drop downs, no conditional formatting. My wife even asked me, "What's so great about this spreadsheet? You told me you created an application, but this is nothing by a bunch of rows and columns."

For a change I tried to report this lack of functionality to Google. However, Google does not accept direct emails, but you have to jump through a set of hoops to really get to a point where you can hope to report your issue. And that too I could just select the function and submit it. No text, no details nothing. Apparently Google engineers know what the issues are and respond to them as warranted. So far, I haven't had a response from Google and I am not hopeful because there must hundreds of thousands of users like me who would be reporting such issues.

Again while forming a opinion about the services, I have kept in mind that the service is still in Beta so we have not seen the end of it and I am sure before the product is released in it's final version, it will be much more polished and functional. But I just wished that Google be a little more receptive of the users' needs.