There is intense interest in the idea of online productivity suites, but real-world usage is more limited. Two recent developments show how the sector is evolving.
First, Google has started including Sun’s StarOffice, substantially the same as OpenOffice, within its Google Pack, a set of free software utilities that are automatically kept up-to-date once installed. Second, the online office suite provider Zoho is adding offline capability through Google Gears, an open-source browser add-on.

Both these initiatives are a tacit admission that pure online applications are not enough. There would be no need for StarOffice if Google’s existing online suite, Docs & Spreadsheets, really had all the features users require. Similarly, Zoho’s move recognises that we need to work offline, and that there is great reassurance in local copies of important files.

Unfortunately, both offerings are half-baked. Zoho’s new offline feature is promising, but currently of little use because it only supports document viewing offline, not editing. In other words, you will still need a traditional office suite. As for Google, it has an abundance of interesting offerings but offers no clarity about how they are meant to fit together.

Pushing out StarOffice is good PR for Sun, and one in the eye for Microsoft, but what is the role of StarOffice versus Google’s Docs & Spreadsheets? Google does not even include hooks to let you save and open online documents from within StarOffice. By contrast, Zoho at least has a plug-in for Microsoft Word and Excel that adds this feature.

These announcements remind me of the immaturity of this sector, a thought that is echoed by a recent Burton Group report that looks primarily at the email and productivity bundle called Google Apps Premier Edition. Microsoft Office, it observes, has a “huge lead” in features. Further, Google’s suite lacks some of the collaboration features you might expect from an internet-based service, including RSS, wikis and discussion forums. Other limitations identified by Burton Group are weak records management, a poor service level agreement, limited telephone support, and lack of clarity about future strategy.

The comment about a fuzzy strategy is the most telling. I do not mean to be dismissive. Google’s applications are generally fast, reliable and effective, and Google Mail has crept into the enterprise by the back door simply because it works so well. Many of the pieces are in place, but Google must better articulate its strategy for enterprise applications if it is serious about winning market share.