Not many of us look at competition as something that we actually need. But it is very true, especially if you are a company that is as big as Google. You get big, your bureaucracy gets even bigger, departments keep fighting with each other and at the end of the day, your output suffers. Suddenly, a new age competitor waltzes in, puts you on notice, and makes it crystal clear that if you don’t clean up your desk, you won’t have a desk for much longer.
Essentially, you are left with no choice but to respond, and that’s exactly what Google has been doing with G Suite, its office productivity application. I use both Google apps as well as Microsoft’s Office suite all the time for my work. When I started using Google Docs and Sheets to get my work done, I loved how simple it made things for me, and I especially loved the fact that sharing and collaborating with my peers in real-time was so easy. Naturally, my expectations for Google applications went through the roof despite the fact I knew full well that Google Sheets stood no chance when it came to the utility of Excel.
I still kept using both packages and kept expecting Google Sheets to improve massively in the future so I could make it my number one choice. But that future kept getting further and further away, until today Google Sheets sadly remains my second choice.
Microsoft, the new-age competitor I spoke about earlier, however, kept improving at a much stronger pace. In one of our earlier articles, my colleague detailed how Office 365 took things to the next level, leaving its competition behind. That competition included Google, unfortunately, as well as Salesforce.com and Box.
Google, at long last, has realized the threat that Office 365 poses to what it now calls G Suite (formerly Google Apps for Work) and is scrambling to partner with companies like Salesforce. The deal involves integrating both Gmail and Sheets with Salesforce products.
The company today announced a slew of features that aims to make it easy for you track down your colleagues for answers and assign an Action Item to someone.
You can do it from Google Docs…
And just as easily from Google Sheets…
In addition, they’ve also made it very easy to create forms and questionnaires.
Google says that they have added more ways to format and customize content using voice commands on G Suite. They have also partnered with Slack so that with a click of the “+” button in Slack, you can get files from your Google Drive directly into a conversation with your team.
So thank you, Microsoft, for making Google improve an application that I have been using for many years. I think that I will continue using G-suite as well as Office 365. Keep fighting big boys, as long as you can keep making my job easier!
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