Google to take over the office, world

Hey, has anyone heard of some company called Google? I know, what a wacky name for a company, right? Well, anyway, I've been hearing a lot about them recently, they're apparently the world's largest media company, they bought YouTube for $1.6 billion just the other day and they also plan to control all of the world's information. Who knew?

Well, anyhow, these jokers apparently think they're taking on Microsoft now. That's right, many of you will remember that they debuted an online spreadsheet application not too long ago, which they followed up by relaunching Writely, one of the more popular Web 2.0 word processors, which they snapped up last year. There were all sorts of rumblings about "Google Office" at the time but nothing ever materialized. But we all knew it was coming, didn't we? Well, at the Office 2.0 conference today, Google finally owned up to their plans for desktop domination with Google Docs, an online applications suite that combines the two office productivity apps, with an emphasis on their online collaborative features. Meanwhile, back at Castle Grayskull in Redmond, Microsoft's Live Writer is in Beta, while online versions of the rest of its Office suite are nowhere to be found. Although Google Docs isn't likely to lure any enterprises away from Microsoft Office just yet, this is a sure sign that Google is putting a lot of stock in the idea of Office 2.0 and is making an aggressive move into the space.

So I guess these Google guys are pretty serious, huh? If you ask me, though, they should probably change their name. No one is ever going to take a company called "Google" seriously.

For more on Google Docs:
- see this story from eWeek
- or, check out the Google Docs website yourself