• Socrata :  Social Data Network. One of the most advanced data creation, collection and management tool.
• Google Docs : One of the most used by me, as all the data gets stored as Excel sheet, Automatic graphs based on data.
• Free Online Surveys : Free Solution for your survey or Quiz needs. Quite an apet
• FormSite : A free and easy to use solution

Google doing Analysis of your data!

<DING> I was writing this article and guess what? Well I received another Question a part of one more Questionnaire, hopefully I was successful in stopping the transfer that could have taken my mind for answering those questions on chat, rather I offered help to make that dull chat session into a simply exciting good looking web based questionnaire using Google Docs, and guess we did!! and we got 35 responses in just 18 hours. There was one another Questionnaire which I made for my junior, which was about 12 pages in length of Microsoft Word format. I still remember it was midnight when I working on it, and till that time she hadn’t got a single response from it. And the very next day even before it was 9 in the night, she had 62 responses right in the excel sheet waiting for to lay her hands on it.

Still the practice, the.. information, the.. simple technological usage that could be easily disseminated among the students, among interns still remains hidden from the most of the world. Well, I hope this article does what is necessary.

Viewing OneNote in web browser

“Microsoft is not a web company”, Google is! Microsoft is just diversifying, probably because -

• It has recognized, most of the users spend their time on internet Google.

Software as a Service (SaaS)
SaaS enables firms lower costs,
optimize IT resources,
Shift from capital to operating expenses
SaaS can help Microsoft target enterprises that are resistant to large scale deployment/upgrades.
Customization / Consumerization – Firms increasingly allow workers to choose the platform of their choice be it Microsoft Window, Apple’s MAC or Linux.
Ad Revenue – Microsoft wants to tap the growing revenue from ad-supported services for consumers.

- As analyzed by Gartner.

Viewing Word in web browser

However with great products NEWS come great responsibility, actually to keep on your words is all that matters. By announcing several advance launches -

• Microsoft Windows 7 (Microsoft’s answer to VISTA Bugs),
• Microsoft Azure (The cloud computing platform from Microsoft),
• Microsoft Surface (The New User Interface experience from Microsoft) and the
• Web Version of Microsoft Office

I personally feel its trying to get consumers think more Microsoft even when they are Googling. Gartner says it might slow down the adoption of Google Apps and other personal productivity application, but my gut feelings says it would invite more awareness about Google Docs as an alternative, as well as consumers would use it as a benchmarking to compare what Web version of Office doesn’t offer and might even drive customers to Google if MS fails to meet the expectations.

Editing in OneNote

Gartner has quite well analyzed about Office Web Applications, it suspects Office Web  Applications will -

1. Have a limited set of functions compared with traditional Office
2. Be optimized for use with SilverLight (Microsoft’s rich Internet application)
3. Use SharePoint for the container for collaboration
4. Have offline facilities

Now if Microsoft proves Gartner right, Point 1 will bound to go against Microsoft. If you ever had used Google Docs, I believe it has almost all the features you are looking for in a Document Editor. The best of being it being exported as PDF, and other formats.  But then Point 4 will complement it. So it’s like you can have the web version but it won’t be complete until you buy Microsoft Products . Point 2 Silverlight will probably the interface engine for Web version of Office Application. Microsoft has been quite agressive about spreading Silverlight, Silverlight has been released for linux too. Microsoft is making sure no corner lefts untouched. Moreover Microsoft has been developing Interfaces for its enterprise products on Silverlight too. Microsoft Health Common User Interface is one of the examples and it looks quite impressive.

Editing in Word

Gartner also concluded the challenges Microsoft has to confront while delivering its promise -

1. Limiting the impact on Microsoft’s traditional Office revenue model
2. Re-engineering 20 years of technology for the Web
3. Competing with Google, which offers some compelling features such as real-time
   document collaboration
4. We believe Web versions of personal productivity applications will generally supplement
   locally installed versions, although in some cases, users needing limited functions will
   use Web versions exclusively.

Microsoft has already taken a step by launching www.officelive.com Office live provides

• Anywhere access to your documents,
• Sharing of your documents
• Preview of your documents without any office suit installed.
• Facility to open or save files directly from your favorite office suite.

The service is available for use to both Home users as well as small Business users. I suspect microsoft will shift the service on its cloud computing platform – Azure when it finally launches the Now! Anticipated Web version of Microsoft Office.

Till then keep your finger crossed, hope the clashes of titans helps users get the best! Adios for now!

Google Docs is the best office suite, that gives you the power of collaboration. Google Docs consists of 3 Core Office applications -

• Documents
• Spreadsheets
• Presentations

Google Document -

It’s similar to MS-WORD, it provides you with all the features that MS-Word gives you, from writing text, editing, managing, changing styles, inserting images, etc. The plus point that MS-Word doesn’t give you is – Direct conversion of that document to HTML / PDF / DOC / RTF / TXT / ODT within seconds. Even MS-WORD Converts the Document to HTML but the HTML converted isn’t clean & recommended for direct use with Web. As far as PDF is concerned you need to have additional Software..!!

Google Spreadsheets -

I haven’t worked with the spreadsheets that long & deep, but still experience with it is good enough. Though looking around you’ll find all the formulas that Excel Gives – Column Sorting, Auto-fill, Charts, & some of them like integration with Google finance that even Excel can’t provide .

Google Presentations -

Now this is something which would bring MS to it’s knees. Presentations is one big thing that Google has recently launched on it’s 9th Anniversary. It’s still in BETA Stage – you won’t be able to add Animations to it, still You can create slides, use themes, etc.

The common features to all these 3 Superb products are -

• No Installations – No need to install, except your Browser & Internet Connection.
• Anytime Anywhere access.
• Off-Line & On-Line – Edit Off-line ( Word / Excel / Powerpoint ), upload and Access online.
• Support for large base of Export Formats.
• Simultaneous Editing of the same document.
• Share your Documents with Group of People or Publish it on the WWW.
• Simple yet Secure.
• Restore previous versions of the Documents.
• Invite Users to help you EDIT or Just View the document.
• Lucrative Template / CSS Support