Introducing the new Google Docs and Spreadsheets.

After logging into my Google spreadsheet account I noticed that all of my Writely documents are now available in the same interface. I then checked at Writely.com and the familiar Writely home page is no more. Now it is replaced with an even more familiar Google account login.

Does this reminded anyone else of the bundling tactic that Microsoft used to make their Office applications popular? To me it is the same thing. Just now they are bundling web-based applications. With all of the offerings that Google has (Alerts, Analytics, Base, Docs and Spreadsheets, Gmail, News, Notebook, Page Creator, Personalized Search, Reader, Talk, Webmaster Tools, Adwords, Groups, etc.) They are quickly becoming the one-stop shop for everything related to the Internet.

I would be interested to see some data that showed to what extent MS Office users used their Office applications. Do they use all the advanced featured available in Excel? How many actually do some sort of additional formatting than what is given in a new Word document? Even though the Google applications are more simple than the Office applications, I bet that 80% or more of the population wouldn’t need anything more. Or, being that people seem to be more proficient at Word then Excel, most likely 90% of people are satisfied with Google spreadsheets and 70% are satisfied with Google documents.