A few days before our Content Analysts started joining, we revisited our Google Docs decision (finally!) and agreed that it made sense to continue with it. Here was our rationale:
- It’s free. (Yeah, I can’t emphasize that enough.) The alternative is expensive.
- In the few weeks that we used Google Docs, we felt that it could do almost everything we wanted. The one thing we couldn’t do – merge cells vertically. (Horizontal merges are allowed).
- We did have the option of getting a couple of MS Office licenses when we enrolled into Microsoft’s BizSpark program but we decided not to use it. We didn’t want our folks to get used to the goodness of MS Office!
- We really like the Google Apps integration. In a few browser tabs, we have easy access to Docs, Email, Calendar, etc and collaboration is a breeze.
- We like the fact that we do not have to invest in a file server or even an extra desktop to store our documents centrally. We understand that this comes with the risk of being completely dependent on our internet connection. We plan to offset this risk by exporting our key documents to the desktop on a regular basis. Also, we are trusting Google Docs to roll out offline support soon like they promised.